This one day in-person conference will bring together leaders of professional development, leaders of teams and anyone interested in developing themselves or others as evaluative, empowered practitioners

Attracting, developing and retaining great teachers and leaders is critical to building a brighter future for all children and young people across the country, regardless of background, challenge or need.

The best leaders always recognise that their greatest asset is people, but in a challenging and ever changing landscape even the best laid professional development plans can go astray.

In 2018, Bridget Clay and David Weston published ‘Unleashing Great Teaching’, setting out a practical, evidence based and highly accessible approach to unleashing the very best in our teachers, day by day, month by month, year by year.

Since then our schools, educators, children and families have weathered a pandemic, industrial action, widening social inequalities, mental health issues on the rise in adults and children. The policy backdrop to this has seen the role of multi academy trusts and Ofsted evolving, increasing funding challenges, the introduction of the Golden Thread of teacher development, a recruitment and retention crisis, major Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reviews and increasing school absence.

Never have we needed to support, nurture and develop our teachers and leaders more, both in terms of their practice and wellbeing.

The conference will bring together school and system leaders, policy makers and academics to revisit the key messages of Unleashing Great Teaching in the light of what we know now, for a day of discussion, critical engagement with research, reflection, collaboration and action.