Near the end of the last academic session I was invited to share my learning and experiences of Teacher Leadership with participants on the Education Scotland Excellence in Headship programme. This provided a real opportunity for me to reflect on why teacher agency is such an important concept, particularly at the moment given the scale of change and disruption that the education system has seen in the last few years.

In 2019 I started to become more aware of the concept of Retrieval Practice. Kate Jones had just released a book on the topic, and Tom Sherrington had released a practical version of Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. Through Twitter I learned about the Education Scotland Teacher Leadership Programme, and whilst I wasn’t too sure what the course or concept of teacher leadership involved (or that I would focus on Retrieval Practice), I decided to apply. With the support of the Lead Specialists, I narrowed my enquiry to explore low stakes quizzing with a Higher class. I wanted to see if I could take what the literature was saying and apply it in practice. I hoped my enquiry would reduce exam anxiety and improve candidates’ exam command word technique.

Undertaking the Teacher Leadership Programme was a real opportunity to co-construct the learning experience with my pupils and it proved as much a learning experience for them as it did me. Not only did the programme give me the confidence to re-engage with professional reading, but it provided a genuine opportunity to engage in professional dialogue about teaching and learning as well as the opportunity to gain insight on the pupils’ experience.

It's true in life that you get out of something what you put into it, and I found the programme an incredibly impactful form of professional learning - so much so that I returned as a Critical Friend the following year. This gave me a chance to pay back some of the support and guidance that had been afforded to me during the programme, as well as allow me to continue developing an enquiring stance to my practice and embed much of the work I had undertaken the previous year.

Some may argue that Teacher Leadership is a glorified term to refer to increasing a teacher’s workload – but it is so much more than this. When done correctly, it enables collective professionalism amongst colleagues and creates a shared language between them. Equally, it promotes teachers’ individual agency, and provides the opportunity to engage in professional learning which critically interrupts their practices to improve learners’ outcomes. This agency gives teachers the ability to contribute to meaningful professional dialogue about their practice with authority and conviction.

In many ways the work of education in its broadest sense is recognising that we are greater than the sum of our parts, and therefore when teachers are passionate and given space to share their learning with others, it creates a much more coherent approach and builds the capacity and capabilities of practitioners across the education system.

However, for the value of teacher leadership and practitioner enquiry to be fully recognised, it is the role of senior leaders to establish a strong and sustainable culture of professional learning, where it is explicitly clear that colleagues are trusted to take risks with their practice and to challenge themselves to improve. It is very much about making the implicit explicit and reiterating this frequently. Furthermore, it is essential to recognise the diversity of teacher leadership and practitioner enquiry opportunities across a school rather than just one whole school pedagogical focus. When teachers have the autonomy to shape and lead their own professional learning, and space to share this widely, they will be in the best position to meet the needs of their pupils.

I am fortunate that The High School of Glasgow has a highly collegiate culture and places a great focus on high quality professional learning. Many colleagues undertake a diverse range of teacher leadership opportunities from coaching and mentoring, to leading aspects of the in-house CLPL programme as well as championing the equalities and wellbeing of both pupils and staff. Since joining, I have been equally supported and challenged to develop my practice by engaging with Doug Lemov’s ‘Teach Like a Champion 3.0’ where I have focussed on aspects of Building Ratio and Habits of Attention to maximise learning as we return to a new and hopefully less disrupted normal.

I am proud to have been a part of the PLL Teacher Leadership Programme, and I would encourage colleagues across Scotland to explore the professional learning opportunities available at Education Scotland and perhaps give practitioner enquiry a try.