Kate Edwards, Senior Vice Principal for Quality of Education at MEA Central in Manchester, joins us online to share how her school has built inclusion into its culture, curriculum, pastoral work, and teacher development. Ofsted rated the approach exceptional in July. Kate will cover how disadvantage shows up in classrooms, MEA Central's "accessible by design" framework, and the part that video reflection, peer observation, and protected development time play in keeping inclusive teaching going. There is a live Q&A at the end. 📅 Wednesday 4 November, 4:00 to 5:00pm 💻 Online via Zoom Book your place: eu1.hubs.ly/H0zlH1-0

👀 Looking for some inspiration to further develop teaching & learning in your classrooms? The IRIS Connect YouTube channel has over 190 free videos for teachers, coaches, and CPD leaders. Here is what you will find: Teaching Techniques video models Short video models of proven techniques, grouped by theme: Oracy, Responsive Teaching, Instruction for Initial Understanding, Checking for Understanding, Consolidating Learning, Feedback, and Behaviour. They work well as a starting point for a coaching conversation or a department meeting. Full recordings from our events School and trust leaders share what has worked for them, in sessions such as: The Empowerment Paradox: Building Agency Without Losing Accountability Protecting Agency in the Pursuit of Consistency From Good to Outstanding: Our Journey to Exceptional Teaching It’s Not What We Do, It’s The Way That We Do It: Values-Led Coaching and School Culture Seeing What Matters: AI-Supported Reflective Practice at Trust Scale Webinars and big ideas Including Ending the CPD Tug of War: Building a System That Balances Autonomy and Accountability, and AI-Powered Coaching and the Future of CPD. Stories from schools Case studies from schools and trusts on how they have built a culture of reflection and improvement. Subscribe and explore: eu1.hubs.ly/H0zlpPw0 #TeacherCPD #InstructionalCoaching

You play a clip of a technique working beautifully. A hand goes up at the back: “That was a different school, with different children, in a different part of the country. It wouldn’t work with my Year 9s.” If you lead professional development, you have probably heard some version of this. It is tempting to file it under resistance. We think it is more accurate, and considerably more useful, to treat it as a reasonable objection about transfer. Here is how some of our schools approach it: eu1.hubs.ly/H0z87bJ0

New IRIS Connect Blog 🔈 Every framework, mentor meeting, and teaching standard asks teachers to reflect on their lessons. What none of them explains is when and how, exactly, you are supposed to do that. Here’s a guide that might help > eu1.hubs.ly/H0z834t0

Kate Edwards, Senior Vice Principal for Quality of Education at MEA Central in Manchester, joins us on Wednesday 4 November to share how her school builds inclusion into its culture, curriculum, pastoral work and teacher development. Ofsted rated the approach exceptional in July. In Inclusion in the DNA: Practical Lessons for Schools Shaping Their Inclusion Strategy, Kate will cover how disadvantage shows up in classrooms, MEA Central's "accessible by design" framework, and how IRIS Connect video reflection, peer observation and protected development time keep inclusive teaching going. There's a live Q&A at the end. Wednesday 4 November, 4:00 to 5:00pm Online via Zoom Book your place: bit.ly/4saOFz0

Danecourt School’s coaching model took five years to build. Moving a staff culture from “done to” towards “done with” meant honest conversations, an IRIS Connect Pathway designed around what teachers actually wanted from it, and time for people to trust that recording a lesson was for them, not about them. What they have now is a programme where teachers choose their focus, record their own practice, and 17 out of 17 say the process is useful for their development. Read how they got there: bit.ly/3UjQ5dM

Almost two decades ago, IRIS Connect started with one question: why does so much professional development fail to change what happens in the classroom? Building an innovative solution for video observations was our first answer, and the one we're most known for. Since then we've spent years working closely with thousands of schools, continuously researching and developing, adding learning Pathways, AI Insights, a library of Teaching Techniques, Objectives, integrated WalkThrus and more, each one helping teachers turn learning into lasting change in practice. In our latest webinar, Andy and Matt Newell share how IRIS Connect grew into an integrated system for teacher development, with a live walkthrough. Watch the recording: bit.ly/4hMbOmx

How do you give teachers real ownership of their development and still know it's working? That was the question at Danecourt School, a special school for 290 pupils with complex needs. Their answer was two video coaching routes where teachers choose their own focus and record their own practice. Read how Danecourt did it: bit.ly/4dmA11j

At Nottinghamshire Torch SCITT, more than 65 trainees and 15 subjects run every week, and each subject lead needs a clear view of how their trainees are getting on, whether they're in centre or on placement. IRIS Connect brings tutors, mentors and trainees into one shared place. Lessons can be watched back without a visit, which cuts travel time, and trainees can record and review their own teaching and see their progress over time. Megan Clune, ITE Programme Director at the University of Auckland, puts it well: "Teaching isn't about delivering a script. It's a profession where expert teachers make countless in-the-moment decisions." For her, IRIS Connect is what makes those decisions visible. Providers including Teach First, United Teaching and the University of Auckland use IRIS Connect for initial teacher training. More on IRIS Connect for ITT: bit.ly/3VloeKA

Jonny O'Connor remembers when the first 30 minutes of a coaching session went on recapping the lesson. As Deputy Headteacher at Willow Tree Park, he found the coaching itself "barely got off the ground". Now the preparation happens beforehand. Coach and teacher have both watched the recording, added timestamps and notes, and seen what the teacher reflected on and what AI Insights picked up. "We now start with coaching, not catch-up," he says. Thanks to Jonny O'Connor and Willow Tree Park for sharing how their sessions have changed. More from schools in the IRIS Connect community: eu1.hubs.ly/H0yzfhT0

Danecourt School retired its twice-yearly formal observations. Accountability didn't go with them. Working closely with our team, the school designed two bespoke Pathways on IRIS Connect platform: one for coaching and one for peer review, running side by side all year. Both are built around each teacher's development conversation and one focused action step at a time. At the end of each cycle, leaders check whether that change has reached the classroom. All 17 teachers said it was useful for their CPD. How they built it: eu1.hubs.ly/H0yF15Q0 #CPD #InstructionalCoaching

Now we're a few weeks into the year, do you have an idea of an area of teaching you'd like to improve this year? If it is feedback, behaviour or modelling, our Teaching Technique Guides are free to anyone, whether or not your school uses IRIS Connect. Each guide is short, and is brought to life with a video example and cognitive rehearsal activity. Have a browse and see what is useful👇bit.ly/4rjwV3H

Customers! IRIS Connect's MD Andy Newell is our spotlight speaker at October's Leadership Webinar. Andy founded IRIS Connect more than 17 years ago as a video platform, which has since grown into a professional development platform supporting the whole development cycle. He's running an hour-long twilight session on Tuesday 6 October for the people who lead IRIS Connect in their school. He'll take you through the whole cycle, the thinking behind it, and what it looks like in schools that use it well. Date: 6th October Time: 4pm Save your place: bit.ly/4j0Vctm

A brilliant session yesterday on how universities can make PGCAP more reflective, scalable, and easier to run. Huge thanks to Helen Waters, Associate Professor of Education at University College Birmingham, for sharing how UCB has built structured reflection into its observation cycles, using video and AI-supported feedback to give academics real independence in reviewing their own teaching. Missed it? Watch the full recording here: bit.ly/472dVNU

Kristy Harrison, Deputy Headteacher at The Charles Dickens School, was honest about where they started with instructional coaching. "A lot of us had been mentors before and a lot of us knew how to give advice and talk a lot, but we didn't necessarily all have the skills needed to be an instructional coach." Naming that gap first, then training for it, is a good place to start if you are launching coaching this term. Her team also narrowed what they were working on. In her words, "narrowing it down has made for a much better whole-school focus." Read how they built their PD around what their teachers actually needed: bit.ly/4gNqqBy

Helen Waters has built one of the most developed uses of video reflection and AI-supported feedback in PGCAP delivery in the UK. On Tuesday 15 September she will share openly what University College Birmingham has built: how structured reflection is embedded into the observation cycle, how participants reflect independently before and between observer meetings, and what other institutions can take and adapt. Less logistical burden on programme leaders. Richer participant reflection against the PSF. How Universities Can Make PGCAP More Reflective, Scalable and Easier To Run 11:00 to 12:00 BST. Free, online. Register: bit.ly/4A0VypY

This week, there will be leaders standing up on an INSET day and introducing the year's development priority. At North Cambridge Academy the priority was adaptive teaching, and the school built a whole-staff peer coaching model around it: every member of staff both coach and coachee, anchored in a bespoke IRIS Connect Pathway. A year in, 94% of staff find the coaching enjoyable and 97% find it useful. "What you've got to do is ensure that the staff understand you're doing something with them, you're not doing something to them." - Jane Driver The full story: bit.ly/4wMYQu5

Before the summer wound down, we got many of us around one table. From this week it's all go. Schools are back, CPD programmes are launching, ECTs are starting out, and this is the team that will be alongside teachers through all of it. To everyone heading back into the classroom, have a brilliant start to term!

If you lead a PGCAP/PGCert programme, observation and feedback admin probably eat time that should go on the development itself. Join Helen Waters on Tuesday 15 September for a free online session on a more flexible way to deliver PGCAP. You'll come away with practical ways to cut the logistical burden on your programme team, make participant reflection against the Professional Standards Framework richer, and give staff a more developmental experience across the programme. 11:00 to 12:00 BST, online via Zoom. Reserve a place: bit.ly/4x5aKQY

Happy International Dog Day from the IRIS Connect team. Today we're making a bit of room for our lovely furry colleagues who are always by our sides and work hard everyday to put smiles on our faces Meet some of our furry friends... 🐶 Nahla (Rico) 🐶 Sadie (Anna) 🐶 Ted (Emma) 🐶 Scrumpy (Sim) Who's keeping you company today? Add a photo of yours below. ⬇️