How leaders improve learning

A major technical review of international research on the impact of leadership on learner outcomes identified 5 key aspects of leaders’ roles and ranked them in order of impact (using effect size). Standing out from all the others, twice as large as the next most important, was ‘promoting and participating in teacher learning’ – as this graph shows:

leaders effect on learning

CUREE’s own 15 years of conducting and analysing the research evidence has shown:

  • that there is now a robust and settled body of evidence about effective teaching and learning approaches;
  • the teacher/trainer remains pivotal in achieving high quality learner outcomes;
  • the centrality of professional development and learning (CPDL) - better initial training  doesn’t fix it;
  • the variability of quality and impact of CPDL and the ineffectiveness of much of it.