⭐ Show Notes — The Leadership Lens:

Teaching That Sticks: The Mechanisms Behind Truly Effective Professional Development

Welcome back to The Leadership Lens — the podcast for primary and secondary school leaders who want to improve teaching, strengthen culture, and build thriving schools without burning out their staff.

In today’s episode, we explore something every leader spends huge amounts of time and energy on… but which doesn’t always translate into classroom change:

🎧 Effective Professional Development

What actually makes PD stick? Why do some schools see huge impact, while others see none at all? And how can you design CPD that leads to real, sustained behaviour change? This research-based episode will give you a complete blueprint for designing PD that actually changes practice — not just great INSET, but great teaching.

🔍 In This Episode,

We Cover:

01 — PD as a Curriculum, Not an Event Why the most successful schools sequence, align, and build coherence into their PD offer — across whole school, subject, and individual layers.

02 — The 14 Behaviour-Change Mechanisms A deep dive into the Sims et al. (2021) systematic review and the EEF guidance report, including: Building knowledge Motivating teachers, Developing teaching techniques, Embedding practice

03 — Case Studies From Three Schools - How three schools used the same PD content with wildly different results — and what made the difference.

04 — Three Power Mechanisms The three mechanisms that drive the biggest behaviour change in teaching: Modelling Rehearsal Action planning Why PD without these is almost guaranteed to fail.

05 — Implementation: What You Can and Cannot Adapt - The biggest leadership mistakes in PD, how to avoid them, and what to protect at all costs.

06 — Three Big Leadership Takeaways

Clear, actionable insights you can start using this week.

🧠 Key Research Mentioned

Education Endowment Foundation (2021) – Effective Professional Development Guidance Report

Sims, Fletcher-Wood et al. – Systematic review of PD mechanisms

Deans for Impact – Practice with Purpose (expertise and deliberate practice) Cognitive Load Theory, formative assessment literature, instructional coaching research

🛠 Premium Members: Your Exclusive Resources Premium members get two powerful companion resources for this episode:

⭐ 1. A Fully Editable PD Presentation: Teaching That Sticks: The Mechanisms Behind Truly Effective Professional Development. Perfect for INSET days, SLT training, trust events, or coaching your middle leaders.

⭐ 2. A Word-for-Word Training Script Deliver the session yourself with confidence — ready for any CPD setting, at any time.

To access your resources, head to the Premium Members Hub. Not a Premium Member yet? You can join instantly — all the details are in the link: https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership