The essential training programme for teachers, leaders and support staff

Teachers and school leaders face a huge problem that people don’t often talk about: the vast majority of school improvement initiatives fail to bring about lasting, positive change. But – we’re in luck. In recent years, a new field of study has emerged – the 'science of implementation' – which is the study of how to bring about lasting positive change in real-world contexts. To date, implementation science has mainly focused on the field of healthcare. Now, we have created a training programme for teachers, school leaders and support staff. And as you can see from the testimonials - the feedback has been *sensational*

To scale up this powerful approach to change management in a way that is cost-effective for schools, we have now created an online version of the Implementation Science for Schools (ISS) toolkit. The full training programme comprises four elements: 23 videos The ISS playbook The ISS planning template Access to the global ISS community

The ISS training programme is designed to help anyone interested in improving educational outcomes for young people. It can be completed by individuals, or by groups of practitioners, at any level of the education system: Teachers Support staff Middle leaders Senior leaders Head teachers Executive heads Governors Parents/carers Children and young people However, the programme is really designed for a Vertical Slice Team (a change team comprising representative stakeholders from throughout the organisation) to work through together – firstly writing, and then implementing, a comprehensive plan for a chosen change initiative. The ISS training programme is not available for individuals. Instead, each organisation pays an annual subscription, and then anyone within the organisation can access the programme for as long as the subscription is maintained.

The free taster course comprises 10 videos (total viewing time 59min). The full training programme comprises 23 videos (total viewing time 4h45min). It also includes a 180-page playbook. Each chapter includes key information from the videos, followed by activities designed to help you translate insights from implementation science to your context. To work your way through the videos and playbook - and to write a comprehensive implementation plan for a chosen area of school improvement - usually takes around 20-25 hours.

We operate a sliding scale of fees according to the size of your school. See here for a flyer which includes our pricing structure.

Sign up for the free taster course - or, to access the full training course, drop us a line!

To access the paid course, log in to the site and select ‘programmes’ in the menu bar. If you encounter any problems, drop us a line.

The ISS programme was written and produced by Dr James Mannion. James is the Director of Rethinking Education, an organisation dedicated to improving outcomes for young people through implementation science, self-regulated learning and practitioner inquiry. He has a Masters degree in Person-Centred Education from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in Self-Regulated Learning from the University of Cambridge. James started thinking seriously about implementation science while completing his doctorate. This was an 8-year evaluation of the Learning Skills curriculum, a whole-school approach to developing self-regulated learning that led to significant gains in subject learning across the curriculum, with accelerated gains among students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This culminated in the book Fear is the Mind Killer (2020), which James co-authored with Kate McAllister. Since then, James and Kate have worked with schools on every continent to implement Learning Skills curricula - and James has trained thousands of teachers and school leaders all over the world in the art and science of effective implementation. Until recently, James worked as a Bespoke Programmes Leader in the Centre for Educational Leadership at the UCL Institute of Education. In this role, he worked with teachers and schools throughout the UK and around the world to promote research-informed approaches to professional development and school improvement. It was here that James piloted the 'Implementation Science for Schools' programme at UCL Academy in North London. Previously, James worked as a secondary school Science teacher for 12 years, and spent 8 years in school leadership roles. He is an Associate of Oracy Cambridge, a Founding Fellow of England's Chartered College of Teaching and a Bye-Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge.