As we look ahead to a new academic year, it’s the perfect time to pause and reflect on the kind of professional culture that we want to shape together. Whether you’re leading a team, a phase or a subject, or simply passionate about your own development, the conditions that we create for professional learning will define the impact that we can have not just on each other but, most importantly, on our pupils.
At the heart of our work lies a powerful truth: leading high-quality CPD is the most significant lever we have for sustainable, school-wide improvement. It raises expectations, builds collective efficacy and creates a climate where both staff and students thrive. When done well, CPD isn’t a bolt-on or an opportunity to chase the next shiny thing, it’s the engine of school transformation.
Whether you’re curious, motivated or just seeking inspiration, the reads below should offer the spark you’re looking for to stretch your thinking, ignite new ideas and set you up to lead staff development even more purposefully in the year ahead.
1. Unleashing Great Teaching: the secrets to the most effective teacher development by David Weston and Bridget Clay
In this indispensable book, Weston and Clay bring CPD back to its core purpose: helping teachers to get better in ways that matter for pupils. Drawing on research and real-world practice, they make the case for professional development that is evidence-informed, sustained over time and rooted in collaboration. It’s essential reading for anyone serious about building a meaningful CPD culture in their school or trust.
2. The CPD Curriculum: creating conditions for growth by Zoe Enser and Mark Enser
Starting with a simple provocation that “there must be another way”, the Ensers challenge us to rethink how we design professional development. They pose the question: why should CPD be any less carefully planned or sequenced than the curriculum that we teach? This book offers a thoughtful, practical alternative to scattergun training - one that’s coherent, sustainable and focused on the long-term growth of teachers.
3. Virtuous Educational Leadership: doing the right work the right way by Viviane Robinson
Robinson reframes CPD as a leadership responsibility - not just an organisational task, but a moral one. At the heart of her argument is the need to do “the right work in the right way”. That means focusing on the kind of professional learning that leads to deep, lasting change.
Robinson implores us to reject quick fixes and compliance, and instead calls for leadership that fosters genuine inquiry, respects teacher thinking and invests in the complex process of deep learning. If we want CPD to improve outcomes, then how we lead it - thoughtfully, purposefully and ethically - matters more than ever.
4. Leadership for Teacher Learning: creating a culture where all teachers improve so that all students succeed by Dylan Wiliam
Wiliam’s core message is deceptively simple: every teacher can improve, and every school should be designed to make that happen. He challenges the assumption that development is a personal responsibility, arguing instead that it’s a leadership imperative.
Central to his vision are professional learning communities: structured, collaborative spaces where teachers engage with research, reflect on practice and embed change over time. Grounded in formative assessment and real classroom work, these communities become the infrastructure for school improvement.
5. Teacher CPD: international trends, opportunities and challenges, edited by Cat Scutt and Sarah Harrison
If you want to zoom out and see where your CPD strategy sits in the wider landscape, this collection is the perfect lens. Drawing on international research and practice, it explores what effective teacher development looks like across systems, and what we can learn from each other.
Edited by Cat Scutt and Sarah Harrison of the Chartered College of Teaching, it’s a rich, research-informed guide that tackles everything from mentoring and coaching to policy and professionalism. It is not just a book of ideas but a powerful call to connect, reflect and raise our collective ambition for teacher learning.
6. Punk Leadership: leading schools differently by Keziah Featherstone
Featherstone makes a bold case for leadership grounded in values, vulnerability and trust. If CPD is to be more than an exercise in compliance, then culture is where we must start, and this book shows how. With candour and courage, Featherstone challenges the status quo, calling on leaders to dismantle toxic norms and create space for genuine professional growth.
Punk Leadership isn’t just about doing things differently, it’s about doing them better. In a system under pressure, this is a timely reminder that radical change often begins with human connection.
7. A Guide to Teaching, Parenting and Creating Family-Friendly Schools: the MTPT project handbook, edited by Emma Sheppard
Too often professional development is imagined as linear and uninterrupted, but this book challenges that narrative entirely. Edited by Emma Sheppard, founder of the Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project (MTPT), it reframes parental leave as a period of powerful professional reflection and growth.
More than that, it’s a blueprint for how schools can create genuinely inclusive environments where parent-teachers can thrive. If we’re serious about lifelong development, then we need to stop seeing parenthood and progression as incompatible. This is essential reading for anyone leading CPD and for any school committed to retaining and developing talent at every life stage.
Rethinking CPD
If we want a self-improving system, we have to start by trusting in the professionalism of teachers, and that means rethinking how we approach CPD.
Programmes, external courses and training can only ever be part of the answer. Crucially, it’s about creating the space for teachers and leaders to reflect, think critically and collaborate.
That kind of culture doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built intentionally, through thoughtful leadership, high-quality conversations and a clear belief that every teacher deserves the chance to keep developing their practice.
Tracy Goodyear is the chair and Sam Gibbs is the deputy chair of the Trust Wide CPD Leads’ Forum
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