Activate

Dr James Mannion is the Director of Rethinking Education, a teacher training organisation dedicated to improving educational outcomes through self-regulated learning, implementation science, and practitioner research. He has a Masters in Person-Centred Education from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in Self-Regulated Learning from the University of Cambridge. Previously, James taught in secondary schools for 12 years. Louise Stoll is Professor of Professional Learning at UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and an international consultant, focusing on how schools and systems create capacity for learning. Louise has co-developed several materials and tools to support leaders and teachers in collaboratively connecting research evidence and practice. A former teacher and school leader, Karen Spence-Thomas is now a programme leader for Bespoke Leadership Programmes at UCL IOE. She specialises in designing and facilitating tailored professional development programmes for leaders within and across schools both in the UK and internationally, and co-leads the IOE's Research and Development Network of schools. Greg Ross is an Associate Professor (Teaching) at the UCL Centre for Educational Leadership, IOE. He specialises in the design and delivery of evidence-informed professional learning programmes for teachers and school leaders, in partnership with ministries of education, non-governmental organisations, and international school groups. Greg's research focuses on the leadership of curriculum change. Before joining the IOE, Greg was a senior leader and English teacher in secondary schools.

Here's a resource which imaginative and committed school and college leaders will grab as a way of improving the quality of what goes on among teachers and pupils in classrooms, departments and more widely. After all, metacognition and self-regulated learning represent the El Dorado of educators - to be able to identify accurately for yourself where you need to improve and have sufficient control of your behaviour and environment to do it would be the ideal outcome for us all - and a huge benefit to a heathy society if it could be done at scale. This resource could help. Every school and college needs a copy, but they will also need leaders who commit to its thoughtful implementation. It's particularly suited to a multi-academy trust since they will have the resource to enable hands-on coaching, which will be the ideal way of making sure it isn't one of those many good ideas which founder for lack of commitment from leaders.Tim Brighouse