C6. Seek Inspiration toolkit
Toolkit
Seeking inspiration begins with deliberately identifying where to look. This might include analysing national performance data to identify which schools are excelling in particular areas, exploring local collaborative datasets to learn from peers, or following up on books, journals, or research recommended by colleagues. Inspiration can also come from outside education, such as high-performance sport, hospitality, or business. The key is to choose sources with intent, extract what makes them effective, and then adapt those principles carefully for your own school.
| Identify Sources of Inspiration |
| List the areas you will explore for new ideas. This could be national performance tables, local collaborative partnerships, or recommended books and journals. It might also include school visits, external networks, or insights from other sectors. |
| Source (school, book, article, visit, or network) |
| Record where the specific idea came from. Note enough detail so it can be revisited or shared later. |
| What’s the Mechanism? |
| Identify the core principle or mechanism that makes the idea effective. Look beneath the surface to understand why it works rather than simply noting what it looks like. |
| Adaptations for Our Context |
| Decide what changes would be needed to make the idea fit your school’s culture, systems, and resources. Copying without adaptation risks failure, so tailor it deliberately. |
| First Small Trial |
| Plan a low-risk test. This might be within a single department, year group, or for a fixed time period to gather evidence before scaling. |
| Result / Next Step |
| Capture what happened in the trial and identify the logical next action. This might be further adaptation, broader implementation, or discontinuing the idea. |
| Reflection Prompts |
| Am I seeking inspiration from a broad enough range of sources, including beyond education? Am I focusing on principles rather than surface features? Do I adapt ideas carefully to our school’s context rather than copy them directly? Am I testing small before scaling big to reduce risk? Am I sharing what I have learned widely enough so that inspiration benefits the whole community? |
C6. Seek Inspiration: example toolkit
Role: Assistant Headteacher
| Identify Sources of Inspiration |
| My focus area is improving teacher professional development through coaching and collaborative inquiry. I will draw on high-performing trusts, research journals on instructional coaching, and insights from professional sport and performance psychology. |
| Source (school, book, article, visit, or network) |
| Leverage Leadership by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo for clear frameworks for coaching and habit-building.A visit to a school to observe structured coaching cycles with measurable impact.Article: Incremental coaching, Peter Matthews, 2019.A podcast interview with Dave Brailsford on marginal gains in sport and leadership. |
| What’s the Mechanism? |
| Across sources, the mechanism is clarity, focus, and incremental improvement through structured repetition with feedback. I will identify a single focus area, coach regularly in short cycles, and measure progress precisely. Improvement comes through sustained deliberate practice rather than sporadic training. |
| Adaptations for Our Context |
| We already have instructional coaching, but participation is inconsistent. I will create protected time in the timetable for weekly 15-minute coaching conversations and link these to a shared visual tracker that shows progress across terms. I will align the coaching language with our values. |
| First Small Trial |
| I will pilot within the English department for six weeks, focusing on improving feedback dialogue through targeted questioning. I will use paired observations and reflective journals to measure impact. |
| Result / Next Step |
| The English pilot strengthened lesson dialogue and teacher confidence. Staff valued the clarity of one focus at a time. I will scale next to Maths and produce a short internal guide on coaching principles, then schedule inter-departmental learning visits. |
| Reflection Prompts |
| Meaningful inspiration requires adaptation, not imitation. I will broaden sources beyond education and keep change purposeful, ensuring that inspiration fuels coherence, not distraction. |