Collaboration

This booklet is part of a national project, carried out by CUREE and commissioned by The Innovation Unit, that is exploring both research and practice. The project is bringing together the evidence from education research and an analysis of the approaches to transfer and going to scale currently in use by the key national education agencies in England in 2006-07. The aim is to develop a more widely shared understanding of existing practice and of the evidence base about transfer and scaling up of innovative and/or effective practice in education.

The Leading CPD in School Networks leaflet has been produced as part of the NCSL Network Research series. The leaflet is the final product from a collaborative enquiry that took place during 2005, involving all the national agencies and a range of key stakeholders with an active interest in both networks and continuing professional development. The leaflet draws together and reflects the evidence about the leadership of CPD in networks, exploring the perspectives of the national agencies in a matrix of current leadership programmes. Identifying some of the core challenges and underpinning issues through evidence from three systematic reviews of research, interviews, focus groups and a policy makers seminar. The leaflet identifies some of the key characteristics of effective CPD in networks such as the importance of collaborative CPD, peer support, use of experts and use of professional dialogue. The leaflet provides a framework designed to support school leaders in leading CPD in networked contexts more effectively through providing a breakdown of the different components of network leadership.