Formalise, Prioritise and Mobilise

Chris Brown is Professor of Education at the School of Education and Childhood Studies, University of Portsmouth, UK. He has a long standing interest in how evidence can aid education policy and practice, and, along with Dr. Cindy Poortman (University of Twente) is seeking to drive forward the notion of Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) as a means to promote the collaborative learning of teachers. Chris has written six books, scores of papers, and has presented at a number of international conferences in Europe, Asia and North and South America. Jane Flood is Head of Learning at Netley Marsh CE Infant School, UK. She has been an Infant teacher for over 20 years, in roles from supply teacher to Deputy Head, in one-form entry Infants to large inner city Primaries. Throughout her career Jane has engaged in school based research, designed to raise pupil outcomes and disseminating this learning to colleagues. In 2018 she became a Founding Fellow of The Chartered College of Teaching. Jane is currently undertaking a PhD at The University of Portsmouth, focussing on ways to manage the competing priorities of teacher researchers and informal leaders in Research Learning Communities.

British education researchers Brown and Flood present a case study of how senior education leaders attempted to maximize the effectiveness of participating in professional learning networks for one learning network: the New Forest Research Learning Network, a specific kind of professional learning network designed to facilitate research-informed change at scale. They draw on in-depth semi-structured interviews with participants as well as on impact data and policy documents to ascertain the types of leadership practice they employed and the nature of those practices.

• 1. The emergence of Professional Learning Networks2. Researching the New Forest RLN3. What actually happened across RLN schools?4. Exploring the actions of individual schools5. Discussion