One of Jenny McWalter’s “absolute favourite quotes” is from Professor Dylan Wiliam, who said that teachers should engage in professional learning not because they have to, but because they can.

At Nord Anglia Education - where McWalter is group head of school professional learning - they, therefore, don’t set targets or expectations for staff development. Instead, McWalter says they aim to make professional learning “relevant, accessible and applicable” in order to “create a culture where people are excited about it and feel a sense of shared moral purpose”.

This, she says, makes staff development more “powerful” because it is both “more effective and it’s more sustainable”. She spoke to Tes about the things she does each week to deliver on this goal.

Integrating new schools into the Nord Anglia family

We have 89 schools in Nord Anglia, and one aspect of my role is supporting the integration of new schools and their development needs.

On average, I travel to visit schools about one week a month. For example, we recently acquired our first schools in Italy, so in January I visited them for three days, following on from the first integration visit I did in November.

This integration work is critical. If new schools joined and we just gave them everything at once, it would be too much to absorb. So I help them understand the Nord Anglia offer in greater depth, getting to know the new school and our new colleagues and seeing what we can do to enhance what they offer.

That helps me identify the school’s professional learning needs, but it also feeds into that picture I’m always building of, are there any regional or global needs that are shared with other schools?

Harnessing and sharing effective practice

I also spend a lot of time reviewing school self-evaluations. We believe continuous school improvement comes about from highly effective, robust self-evaluation. So, around October to November, schools share their annual self-evaluations.

It takes a little bit of time for us to review them, but reading those self-evaluations gives me a phenomenal way of seeing: what are our schools’ strengths?

That helps me when someone phones and says, “Is there a school I should talk to to help improve our approach to multi-lingual learning?” And I’ll say, “You need to talk to the British Vietnamese Schools in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.”

That’s because of the insight I get from looking at school self-evaluations.

One of the key ideas in our group is that, whatever the issue, whatever the opportunity, the group has the answer. And part of what we do is move knowledge and practice around because, by harnessing effective expertise, we grow effective expertise.

Developing and delivering professional learning

I also deliver professional learning, mostly via two to three webinars per week.

For example, I recently ran a big webinar for a cohort on our middle leaders programme, and I have ones for our principal leaders programme and senior leaders programme coming up, too.

Each school also has a professional learning leader, so I do webinars with them once a month, split into two sessions. There is one for the EU and the Americas and one for Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and China.

We also bring people together a few times a year at conferences - such as a big regional conference in the Americas on safeguarding or one in Thailand on sharing and co-creating, with at least 80 workshops run by practitioners in our schools.

In addition to online communities, we convene groups for colleagues who have roles in common - be that primary heads in Europe or school principals in Southeast Asia.

It’s through those conversations that a school in Monterey realises that a school in Madrid shares the same priority and can connect and share approaches and act as accountability partners.

Nord Anglia University

I also lead the development and use of Nord Anglia University - our online learning platform with around 7,000 professional learning opportunities - to ensure it is always meeting the development needs of our teachers and leaders.

That’s a challenge and an opportunity because obviously that’s a lot, so part of what we try to do is help people personalise the experience.

You can create your own playlist, you can join the list that colleagues in your school have set up and join communities of practice - such as an early years community, for example.

My job is to ensure we have learning on there for everyone - our annual employee engagement survey provides insights on how staff are using it and what they think they need for their professional learning needs.

Professional learning role models

We make a point of ensuring everyone in Nord Anglia is involved in this professional learning, so we are really practising what we preach.

I’m a graduate of the senior leaders programme, and I’m currently on our organisational leadership programme; our CEO is a graduate of our master’s programme, as is our chief operating officer. So we are always signalling at every level to prioritise your professional learning.

Spare time

In a global role, you could be doing my job six days a week, 24 hours a day. But I take the work we have done as an organisation on wellbeing seriously - you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help others, so I make a point of switching off when I can.

I got back into horse riding a couple of years ago, and it’s been life changing. When you are galloping across Cannock Chase, Windsor Park or Richmond Park, you can’t think about work. That has been game-changing for me.

Jenny McWalter was talking to Emma Seith

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