September arrives with renewed energy. School improvement priorities have been agreed, the CPD calendar is planned, coaching arrangements are in place and staff have been introduced to the approaches the school wants to develop.
There’s a clear direction. Everyone knows what the school is working towards.
Fast forward to January.
Staffing, cover, behaviour and the demands of exam classes are competing for attention. CPD and coaching are still on the calendar, but maintaining the same focus can become increasingly difficult.
Some approaches are becoming embedded. Others are being implemented less consistently than intended.
Were the priorities introduced in September embedded deeply enough to withstand the realities of school life?
To explore this, I invited Ronnie Mewes, an Assistant Principal with experience in curriculum development, behaviour, assessment and professional development, to share his reflections through a written Q&A.
We wanted to examine what happens when school improvement priorities meet the realities of school leadership.
Is January really the problem?
Schools are rarely short of good ideas.
A new teaching and learning framework, revised behaviour routines or an instructional coaching programme may all be introduced with good intentions.
The challenge is giving those priorities enough time and attention to become part of everyday classroom practice.
In conversation with Ronnie
Omar: Why do teaching and learning priorities sometimes lose momentum after September? Is January really the problem?
Ronnie: I actually think January is a genuine point of contention for a number of reasons. Firstly, as you rightly suggest, implementation is key. Were the priorities introduced well in September? Were they revisited and reinforced? Were staff given enough time and support to put the ideas into practice properly? I think we sometimes underestimate how much time it takes to turn a new approach into a consistent classroom habit.
Secondly, there is the issue of staff workload and burnout. Schools can sometimes try to implement too many things at once, effectively throwing ideas at problems rather than identifying one or two key improvements and really nailing them down. There is a temptation to keep moving forward and introducing something new, when actually the greatest gains might come from getting better at what we have already started.
Ronnie also highlighted staff turnover. When colleagues leave, schools can lose some of the knowledge and momentum behind an improvement priority, while new staff need time to understand established approaches.
He made an observation that gets to the heart of this discussion:
Sometimes, we haven’t necessarily got a January problem; we have a problem with how we have approached September.
This connects closely to the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) A School’s Guide to Implementation (2024), which identifies four flexible phases: Explore, Prepare, Deliver and Sustain.
The final phase is particularly important.
Introducing a strategy or delivering a CPD doesn’t mean an approach has become embedded. Teachers need opportunities to practise, receive feedback and revisit what they have learnt.
Introducing a priority is not the same as embedding it.
January might expose weaknesses in implementation, but it can also present genuine operational challenges. Both deserve attention.
When school reality takes over
Consider an ordinary week in a secondary school.
Several teachers are absent. Cover needs organising, a safeguarding concern requires immediate attention and Year 11 intervention needs coordinating.
Meanwhile, coaching meetings are scheduled and professional development priorities still require attention.
These competing demands are part of school leadership, but they can make sustained improvement difficult.
In conversation with Ronnie
Omar: How do behaviour, staffing, cover and other operational pressures affect SLT’s ability to maintain a focus on teaching and learning?
Ronnie: Staffing and cover are huge sticking points. I have seen this in every school I have worked in: when the usual staff body is in the building, standards can be more consistent than when colleagues are absent. That is not to suggest that cover teachers are less capable; rather, even an excellent cover teacher may not know the school’s routines, its pupils or the relationships within a class as well as the usual teacher does. This can affect behaviour, continuity and, ultimately, the amount of learning that takes place.
Ronnie also reflected on how his own approach to behaviour has changed throughout his career.
Earlier in my career, I was probably a bit of a maverick in how I managed my own classes. As I have developed professionally, I have come to appreciate just how important it is for staff to follow a shared behaviour policy and apply it consistently. This strengthens the school’s approach and creates a more predictable environment for pupils. Behaviour cannot simply be the responsibility of the behaviour team or individual classroom teachers; it needs to be everyone’s responsibility.
That relationship between behaviour, school culture and teaching and learning is important.
Teachers developing questioning, modelling or checking for understanding need classrooms where pupils can concentrate and participate. Consistent expectations help create those conditions.
And responsibility for maintaining them cannot sit with just one part of SLT.
As Ronnie concluded:
I think the real test of leadership is not whether we can maintain our teaching and learning priorities when everything is running smoothly, but whether we can protect them when the school is under pressure.
Sustainable school improvement needs to account for the pressures schools actually face, rather than assuming everything will run according to plan.
Making improvement stick
Whole-school CPD can establish shared expectations, but teachers do not all have the same developmental needs.
An early career teacher may be developing classroom routines, while an experienced colleague might be refining their questioning or modelling.
Expecting everyone to follow the same developmental pathway risks making professional development less relevant.
In conversation with Ronnie
Omar: What can SLT do to ensure priorities become embedded? What role should CPD, instructional coaching and quality assurance play?
Ronnie: For me, effective CPD needs to take a three-pronged approach.
Firstly, we absolutely need whole-school CPD that establishes a shared understanding of our priorities and creates consistency in the approaches we want to develop. Secondly, we need to recognise that staff have different developmental needs. These can be identified through learning walks, lesson drop-ins, professional conversations and other forms of quality assurance, with instructional coaching used to support colleagues where appropriate. Thirdly, we need to give staff a voice and create opportunities for them to contribute to professional development.
Too often, CPD can become something delivered by SLT, occasionally supported by a middle leader, with limited opportunities for the wider staff body to shape it. I think we miss a trick when we do this. Experienced teachers, early-career teachers and colleagues new to the school can all bring valuable ideas and perspectives. We should be drawing on that expertise rather than assuming that professional development must always come from the top.
Ronnie described how he had applied this approach while leading a large science department.
He made a deliberate effort to recognise and celebrate effective teaching, creating opportunities for colleagues to share their ideas during departmental time.
Staff told me they had never really experienced that approach before, yet they embraced it and thrived. In a relatively short space of time, it helped build a greater sense of cohesion around our shared vision than might otherwise have taken much longer to establish.
This is a useful reminder that professional development shouldn’t simply be something delivered to teachers.
Staff ownership develops when colleagues are given opportunities to contribute to the priorities they are expected to implement.
The EEF’s Effective Professional Development guidance (2021) reinforces the importance of modelling, rehearsal, feedback and revisiting prior learning.
A CPD might introduce a technique, but sustained professional development helps teachers turn that knowledge into classroom practice.
Coaching, data and implementation
Instructional coaching can be valuable, but it requires time, appropriately trained coaches and opportunities for teachers to practise.
This was something I explored during my Master’s research into instructional coaching and the implementation of a whole-school teaching and learning framework.
A questionnaire involving teachers found that respondents generally valued coaching for supporting reflection, feedback and a shared professional language.
However, time, consistency and coach availability emerged as barriers.
These findings reflected staff perceptions rather than directly measured improvements in pupil outcomes. Nevertheless, they highlighted the importance of the conditions surrounding implementation.
I asked Ronnie to reflect on his own coaching experience.
In conversation with Ronnie
Omar: Looking back at your leadership experience, what approaches worked particularly well, and what would you do differently to sustain improvement?
Ronnie: Absolutely. Firstly, I LOVE coaching, and I think it has a really important role to play in a high-functioning school. However, we cannot simply coach everyone in everything, all at once. Effective coaching takes time to develop, requires staff time and needs to be delivered well. If we try to tackle every perceived problem simultaneously, we risk spreading ourselves too thinly and delivering the process poorly, which makes sustained improvement much less likely.
One of the best experiences I had was joining a school as a Lead Practitioner with responsibility for developing coaching. The school gave me the autonomy to build a model that suited its needs, supported the use of the Teaching WalkThrus book series and provided the tools and time needed to make the work meaningful.
Our approach was to deliver whole-school CPD, follow this up with drop-ins and use a teaching rubric to identify strengths that could be shared, alongside areas where colleagues might benefit from further development. We then used this information to direct targeted coaching and support.
Ronnie also explained that offering different professional development options was particularly valuable. Some teachers benefited from a coaching cycle, while others needed a refresher on a particular teaching technique.
Not every developmental need requires a coaching programme, and not every teacher needs the same intervention.
My own experience as a Lead Practitioner also involved leading instructional coaching, alongside developing systems to support whole-school teaching and learning improvement.
I developed systems using Microsoft Power BI, alongside learning walk and feedback processes, to help identify strengths, areas for development and opportunities for targeted CPD and coaching.
The aim was to use data to inform professional development rather than simply collect it.
But collecting data is not the same as demonstrating impact.
A dashboard might show how frequently mini-whiteboards are observed, for example. That doesn’t necessarily tell us whether the questions are identifying misconceptions or helping teachers adapt their teaching.
The value of data lies not in how much we collect, but in how we use it to inform implementation and improve classroom practice.
Although our coaching experiences were separate, both reinforced the need for professional development that is targeted, manageable and connected to a school’s priorities.
What does the research tell us?
The EEF’s A School’s Guide to Implementation (2024) emphasises that implementation requires sustained attention, supportive conditions and opportunities to reflect and adapt.
Its Effective Professional Development guidance (2021) identifies 14 mechanisms associated with effective professional development, including modelling, feedback, rehearsal and revisiting prior learning.
Kraft, Blazar and Hogan’s (2018) meta-analysis of 60 studies found positive average effects of instructional coaching on teaching practice and pupil achievement. However, effects were smaller in larger effectiveness trials, raising questions about maintaining quality when coaching is scaled up.
Much of this evidence comes from US early-years and primary settings, so caution is needed when applying it directly to secondary schools.
The research doesn’t establish that school improvement routinely declines in January. What it highlights is the importance of giving implementation sufficient time, attention and support.
Try it this January
Before introducing another initiative, choose one teaching and learning priority introduced in September.
Bring the relevant leaders together and consider five questions:
- What problem were we originally trying to solve?
- What does the data tell us about implementation?
- What evidence suggests classroom practice has changed?
- What barriers are teachers experiencing?
- What should we stop, continue or adapt?
Then agree one manageable action.
That might involve revisiting a technique during CPD, protecting coaching time, sharing effective practice or simplifying an existing expectation.
The aim isn’t to create another improvement plan.
It’s to make the existing one more effective.
The real January problem
School improvement doesn’t happen simply because a framework has been launched, a CPD has been delivered or coaching appears on the calendar.
It happens when the approaches schools have prioritised become part of everyday classroom practice.
September offers an opportunity to establish direction.
January offers an opportunity to examine whether that direction has been sustained.
Our reflections bring us back to three important principles: clarity, consistency and collective ownership.
Schools need to be ambitious about what they want to achieve, but realistic about how much change staff can implement effectively at any one time.
The question isn’t simply what we introduced in September. It’s what is still making a difference in January.
References
Education Endowment Foundation (2024). A School’s Guide to Implementation. Third edition. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/implementation/
Education Endowment Foundation (2021). Effective Professional Development. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/effective-professional-development/
Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D. and Hogan, D. (2018). ‘The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence’. Review of Educational Research, 88(4), pp. 547–588. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318759268