How Professional Development at Reach Schools Embeds Lasting Change

Teaching as a Learned Expertise

Great teaching is not an innate talent. It is a skill that can be developed and taught. This is one of the most freeing ideas in teaching because, as Dylan Wiliam (2012) reminds us, every teacher needs to improve, not because they’re not good enough, but because they can be even better. 

At Reach Schools, we know that consistent, excellent teaching is the most powerful lever for pupil success. Consistent excellence requires deliberate practice, a clear mental model, and structured professional development that ensures teachers continuously improve. We believe that experts are made, not born (Ericsson, Prietula & Cokely, 2007).

Our professional development model is built on a clear mental model of what excellence looks like, deliberate habit formation, and purposeful practice. Just as we use the principles of cognitive science to help children learn and improve over time, we apply the same principles to developing teachers. Our approach ensures that great teaching becomes automatic and embedded: consistent, excellent teaching for every pupil, in every class and every lesson.

The Science of Learning: why memory matters in CPD

If teachers are to improve, their professional development must align with how people learn. We know that:

• Memory is the residue of thought (Willingham, 2009). Teachers, like pupils, remember and apply what they actively engage with. There are many things competing for our attention both in and out of the classroom, so it’s important teachers have the dedicated time and space to think deeply about improving their craft.
  
• Forming new habits is difficult. Whether it’s Chip & Dan Heath (2010), James Clear’s Atomic Habits (2021), or researchers like Alan Deutchman (2007) and Richard Wiseman (2015), it is clear that introducing new habits is incredibly tricky and breaking old habits is even harder.
  
• Practice requires artificial conditions. Actors practice parts of scenes before putting a whole play together. Elite sports people do drills to hone their techniques. Pilots use simulators to practice landing their planes. Human beings need to break the whole apart and practice small components in order to put them together successfully later.
  
• Struggle is a feature, not a flaw. Desirable difficulties (Bjork, 1994; Brown, Roediger & McDaniel, 2021) highlight that effortful learning leads to long-term retention and fluency. Learning will be uncomfortable sometimes, but this is often where our learning becomes most secure in the long run.
  

At Reach, we apply these principles directly to our professional development model. We design training that ensures opportunity for reflection and schema building, repeated practice, and embedding our mental models, so that new teaching habits become second nature in the classroom. 

In the first 180 seconds of a lesson a teacher typically greets 30 students; manages a number of things that have not gone to plan (a broken pen, a late student, a missing book); issues, let’s say, 3-5 instructions; checks individually on those who need it; gives clarity about voice levels, time limits and layout of work; and all whilst monitoring the whole room as a whole to ensure an effective start to the lesson . Conservatively, we’re looking at teachers needing to think about and solve something ‘new’ every 6-12 seconds in those first three minutes of a lesson. 

Teaching can be cognitively overwhelming. This is why habits, routines and practice are important. If a teacher doesn’t have to consider what the routine is for handing out work, or where to stand in the classroom, they’ll have more brain space for thinking about what really matters: how to meet the needs of the pupils in front of them.

Developing Fluency: The Reach Schools Approach to CPD

At Reach Schools, our CPD is not about isolated training days. It is a deliberate, structured programme designed to ensure teachers develop automatic expertise.

Step 1: Articulating a Clear Mental Model

To improve, teachers need a precise understanding of what excellence looks like. A vague idea of “better teaching” is not enough, we make it explicit.

• We define a context-specific mental model of consistent, excellent teaching, ensuring clarity across the school. This is codified in our Teaching, Learning & Professional Development handbook.
  
• We use research-backed frameworks to isolate high-leverage teaching habits that drive pupil learning. These are grouped into our Guiding Principles and then split into our core habits and expert habits.
  
• Our core habits focus on actionable, repeatable steps that teachers can take that create calm, focused and purposeful classrooms.

Step 2: Practicing in a Low-Stakes Environment

Understanding a teaching technique is not the same as being able to apply it fluently in a live classroom. That’s why deliberate practice is central to professional development.

• Teachers rehearse new habits in artificial settings, free from the distractions of a real lesson. It is modelled to them by an expert teacher, so they can see how a colleague might approach it in a similar situation.
  
• Practice is purposeful, specific, and sustained. Teachers practice in CPD, in dedicated morning practice sessions, and also during instructional coaching.
  
• Like any expertise, teaching improves through repetition and feedback. Just as a surgeon practices the techniques they need in the operating theatre, teachers refine habits before stepping into the classroom. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but practice plus feedback might give us a shot at excellence.

Step 3: Coaching for Individualised Habit Formation

Professional development across a school or trust can focus on the highest leverage points of development for the group as a whole, but we know that teachers also need individual development. Whether a teacher is new to the profession, and perhaps needs to spend more time embedding the core habits, or is an experienced teacher and is honing one of the expert habits, we all still need support to keep helping us to get better.

At Reach, CPD is personalised through instructional coaching. Every teacher in the trust from trainee to headteacher has an expert coach.

• Coaching is weekly, focused, and action-oriented. Teachers receive a precise action step, practice it, and refine it. The expert coach will model what the action step could look like and facilitate multiple rounds of practice.
  
• Regular, specific feedback accelerates improvement, ensuring that habits become automatic and sustained, and teachers understand the decisions they are taking and the impact on pupil outcomes.
  

Coaching isn’t an add-on, it is central to how we develop our teachers, ensuring that expertise is built, refined, and retained over time.

Why This Matters: The Impact on Pupils

Great teaching transforms pupil outcomes. Research tells us that a great teacher can make a huge difference in the outcome in a pupil’s academic achievements (Hattie, 2003; Harris & O’Brien, 2022; Wiliam & Hayward, 2023) and we know that a great teacher can improve more than just exam results. A great teacher can change lives. 

When teachers develop fluency in core habits, classrooms turn from clunky awkward spaces to fluid, lively and joyful learning environments.

• Pupils experience consistent, high-quality instruction, regardless of which classroom they are in.
  
• Teachers’ cognitive load is reduced: teachers manage their classrooms with greater ease, allowing them to focus on pupil understanding.
  
• All students benefit, particularly those with complex and multiple vulnerabilities, as high expectations and structured teaching enable deeper learning.

Pupils learn more, are more confident, and enjoy learning more. Excellent teaching is a key piece of the jigsaw in great schools. Get teaching right and it’s like starting with the corners and edges: seeing the whole picture becomes much easier and the next steps are much clearer.

Professional development is not about teacher improvement for its own sake. It is about ensuring that every child receives excellent teaching, every lesson, every day.

Professional Development Done Right = Lasting Change

At Reach Schools, professional development is not about attending training sessions and hoping for the best. It is a structured, habit-driven model that transforms teaching practice.

By combining:

• Clear mental models of excellent teaching
• Deliberate practice in low-stakes environments
• Personalised coaching for sustained habit formation

We ensure that great teaching is not left to chance, it is built, refined, and embedded.

Our mission is simple: every child deserves a life of choice and opportunity. That’s why we invest in developing expert teachers: their impact lasts a lifetime.

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