Our Approach to School Leadership
School leadership matters. Effective principals are instructional leaders who ensure that high-quality teaching occurs in every classroom.
Learning Forward works with principals, assistant principals, aspiring principals, and principal supervisors to develop, implement, and sustain a vision for school-based professional learning. We work with these leaders to apply the Standards for Professional Learning in their schools and ensure that educators are working in learning communities that engage in ongoing cycles of continuous improvement.
We help school leaders increase their effectiveness in developing and supporting intellectually rigorous and coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
Learning Forward supports school leaders to:
- Understand their roles as learning leaders in their schools, particularly during challenging times;
- Create an environment where each student experiences relevant, culturally responsive, rigorous learning and benefits from the collective guidance and care of exceptional teachers and leaders;
- Support staff in creating a safe and inclusive environment that celebrates the uniqueness of each student;
- Build, scale, and sustain a coherent professional learning system that explicitly connects adult learning and equitable student outcomes, within a context that nurtures all students’ strengths and aspects of identity;
- Use effective change processes to accomplish the goals of the school;
- Connect a theory of change to the Cycle of Continuous Improvement;
- Increase instructional effectiveness and collective responsibility;
- Develop skills to lead high-achieving professional learning communities that engage in a cycle of continuous improvement, work collaboratively to design instruction aligned with state standards, and analyze student work and understand its connection to student achievement;
- Create time and maximize resources for collaborative professional learning;
- Observe lessons and give reflective feedback to teachers to increase their effectiveness;
- Develop coaching and mentoring skills to encourage collective inquiry and assist teams in solving problems.
- Advocate for their own and their staff’s professional learning.
To learn more about how we can help you develop learning leaders for learning schools in your system, contact us at the link below.
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What we do
Featured Content
Journal Article
The case for investing in principals
Students gain the equivalent of three months’ more learning with an effective principal, but principals are under pressure. 45% of principals reported that pandemic working conditions accelerated their plans to leave the profession.
Featured services
Leadership Coaching
Learning Forward provides one-on-one leadership coaching to principals, assistant principals, and aspiring principals with the intention of deepening understanding of the principal’s role as leader of a learning-focused school...
Assessing Professional Learning
The first step toward school improvement is assessing the current state of professional learning in your school or system. The Standards Assessment Inventory is a 50-item, web-based teacher survey that provides leaders with data on the quality of their professional learning as defined by the Standards for Professional Learning...