: From Good to Great: How school leaders use research evidence to lead sustainable change For school leaders navigating improvement journeys sustainable change is rarely about quick wins

Stepping into headship felt both familiar and new. Familiar because I had spent several years as a deputy headteacher, deeply involved in the daily life of the school and its improvement work. New because, in the two years prior to taking on the role of headteacher, I had been seconded to another local school. That experience offered fresh perspectives on leadership, school culture, and the practical realities of implementing change across different contexts.

Returning as headteacher, what struck me most was not the need for radical transformation, but the strength that already existed: committed staff, motivated pupils, and supportive communities. The challenge, as I saw it, was how to take what was already good and move it towards excellence — and how to do so in a way that was deliberate, sustainable, and rooted in evidence rather than instinct alone.

My professional background has always been grounded in school improvement. However, over the past decade, my understanding of what effective improvement looks like has evolved significantly. This shift has been shaped by the growing body of educational research, particularly since the Sutton Trust’s early work and the subsequent development of the Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance. These developments have helped move the profession beyond improvement driven by anecdote or tradition, towards approaches that are more systematic, transparent, and evidence-informed.

This thinking was further strengthened through my recent completion of the NPQH, which placed research-informed leadership, implementation science, and reflective practice at its core. A recurring message throughout that programme — and one that resonates strongly with my own experience — is that what we choose to implement matters but what can matter more is how we implement it.

One phrase that continues to shape my thinking comes from work shared by the Gloucestershire Research School: ​“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” However robust a plan might be, it is unlikely to succeed unless the culture of a school is ready to support it. For school leaders, this means taking time to understand existing professional habits, routines, and beliefs — valuing what works well, while also creating the conditions for change.

Alongside culture, the EEF’s Implementation Guidance Report provided a practical framework for translating research into action. Its four-stage model — explore, prepare, deliver, sustain — offers a disciplined way of approaching improvement. In practice, this meant beginning with careful exploration: understanding strengths and gaps, listening to staff and pupils, and using available data to identify where change was most likely to make a meaningful difference.

Preparation then became a crucial phase. The EEF is clear that staff understanding and buy-in are essential for successful implementation. Teachers are far more likely to engage with change when they understand the evidence behind it and can see how it connects to their existing practice. Professional learning therefore focused on linking research directly to classroom realities — drawing on evidence from cognitive science, the importance of scaffolding, and the role of retrieval practice — not as add-ons, but as refinements to what was already in place.

Importantly, this was not about launching multiple initiatives. Instead, it was about clarity, coherence, and shared understanding: creating a common language around evidence and agreeing what high-quality practice looked like in that specific context.

This approach to leadership — grounded in culture, guided by evidence, and shaped by thoughtful implementation — provided the foundation for subsequent curriculum development. In the next blog in this short series, the focus will turn to how these principles were applied to reading, an area where the research evidence is particularly strong and where implementation decisions have far-reaching implications for pupils’ wider learning.

For school leaders navigating their own improvement journeys, the message is a familiar but important one: sustainable change is rarely about quick wins. It comes from understanding context, engaging critically with research, and leading change with patience, precision, and purpose.

References

Gloucestershire Research School (2024). Culture eats strategy for breakfast: Is developing culture enough when implementing change? https://researchschool.org.uk/gloucestershire/news/culture-eats-strategy-for-breakfast-is-developing-culture-enough-when-implementing-change

Education Endowment Foundation (2024). Implementation Guidance Report. A School’s Guide to Implementation | EEF