TVs Ted Lasso coined the phrase ‘Be curious, not judgemental’. So what can schools learn about implementing change from the Lasso coaching manual?
We’ve all been there. The September INSET timetable is released. New policies, department meetings, year meetings and set time for compulsory online training. “Whole-staff CPD sessions begin next Monday in the hall. Please ensure that you have selected your area for development and completed the Google form by Friday.” The collective staff sigh at what lies ahead might seem an annual rite of passage for more experienced colleagues, but it shouldn’t. At least, not objectively.
Effective research-based guidance is fast-becoming the norm on INSET agendas shaped by a staff body increasingly well-informed and engaged by professional development. The language of the new Ofsted framework‘signals a shift away from fragmented training days and courses towards a sustained journey of professional growth’ (Evidence-based education). Webinars, training platforms and coaching tools have become ever-more accessible in supporting teachers to embed the latest critical research, video platforms showcase best practice tailored to specific key stages and subjects, whilst an array of social media-inspired education podcasts popularise educational debate and discussion. How could any teacher possibly want for more?!
The reality, however, of the difference between ambitious and demonstrably effective professional development is grounded in the 2018 EEF publication A School’s Guide to Implementation. Over 10 years ago, the DFE published a framework for Standards for teachers professional development which stated that ‘The design of high-quality professional development is as complex a discipline as the design of high-quality teaching. It requires the planning of programmes of connected activities with clarity about intended outcomes, and evaluation’ (DfE, 2016). The EEF implementation guidance identified how effective professional development not only required long-term strategic planning but clear lineage between a school’s specific context, behaviours and rationale for change, with the 2024 update bringing a greater emphasis on ’turning an awareness of evidence into tangible changes in practices and improved outcomes’. (EEF blog). These underlying principles became the thesis for National Professional Qualifications such as the NPQLTD.
It is clear then, that schools – and, by definition, teaching staff – have become increasingly familiar with educational research, developmental models and rationale designed to improve outcomes. Yet, with so many tools at their disposal, why are many teachers’ experience of professional development so constrained by implementation in their school context?
Some answers may be found in ITT – an area I have first-hand experience in as a lead mentor at the Buckingham Partnership SCITT. One of the most challenging changes to ITT provision since 2019 has been the introduction of the CCF (Core Content Framework, replaced by the ITTECF – Initial Teacher Training Early Career Framework - in 2025) and significantly increased level of expected mentor expertise in applying its ‘learn that’ and ‘learn how to’ statements. Coupled with the initial requirement for 20 hours mentor training, it at first appeared both daunting and unrealistic for both mentors and trainers still grappling with a framework that no longer used the Teachers’ Standards familiar in their own training.
In practice, however, the opposite has been true. For busy mentors who are primarily busy teachers, this clarity of training mindset towards the key mechanisms of effective implementation has been paramount in building, motivating, developing and sustaining mentor expertise through StepLab, a system primarily designed to support developmental instructional coaching in-school. By engaging with the platform as a method of monitoring trainee targets and coaching, mentors can trial observation from sample material, practice giving feedback to one another and enact the sometimes complex (and initially awkward) demonstration stage when planning and rehearsing a trainee’s ‘next step’. In designing training, SCITT leaders have prioritised ‘content-focused, active and collaborative… models of effective practice with coaching support, feedback and reflection … of a sustained duration’ (Effective Teacher Professional Development). In turn, a core group of mentors have formed a pilot group launching the platform to all school staff this year.
It is this approach to sustained, developmental professional practice which has drawn parallels with Ted Lasso, the fictional football coach of AFC Richmond who has to win over a sceptical audience of players, fans and owners alike. Lasso’s belief in ‘being curious, not judgemental’ has real value in our profession. All too often, the curiosity and intrigue that we nurture in our students and own children is quickly condemned as a debunked ‘fad’ when it is suggested as a possible change in our own practice. For a profession that places reflective practice as a ‘golden thread’ for development, we are intrinsically fearful of change. What next, then, for the future of professional development in school?
Amidst a drive to embed high-quality teaching for SEND students, skilled adaptive teaching practice and the Curriculum review backdrop, there has arguably never been a more important time for schools to ensure that their professional development programme applies the criteria outlined in A School’s Guide to Implementation: Does the directive have a clear rationale for change supported by research and, where possible, a pilot group? Has the staff body been motivated and engaged to participate? Can it be woven into everyday classroom practice and be developed over the course of an entire year? Is it sufficiently flexible to be adapted according to the school’s context and needs over the course of a year?
Perhaps we can draw upon the sporting coaching manual when launching any professional development initiative in our own schools and classrooms. Elite-level coaches routinely cut their teeth in teaching and there are many parallels between the disciplines, each of which is inherently driven to shape and to help develop the lives of others. Richmond AFC may not be the best team, have the most skillful players or, indeed, the most knowledgeable coach in Lasso, but there is a shared culture, vision and determination to succeed which can overcome each of those hurdles. Short of Lasso himself delivering a Keynote speech in next September’s INSET day, then, replicating this coaching mantra in our own professional development programmes can surely only benefit teaching and learning in schools.
