In this episode, I’m speaking to Costas Constantinou. Costas is the co-founder and Director of Education at Veema Education, an organisation that provides professional development and school improvement programs internationally. A former London-based school leader, he specialises in training, coaching, and supporting educators globally. He is also the author of "A School Leader’s Guide to Leading Professional Development".

Professional development is a fascinating phenomenon, given those in charge are tasked with building a shared language of excellence for staff, who might have ten different definitions of what a "good lesson" even looks like. On top of this, it’s culturally and contextually complex, and is arguably one of the most interesting design challenges in education right now. So, getting Costas into discuss best practice was a real privilege.

We discuss:

1. How and why schools should move from one-off events to multi-year CPD that establishes whole-school priorities while still being relevant at the department level
2. How can leaders can make CPD meaningful for both early career teachers and experienced subject specialists
3. How we foster 'disciplined inquiry,' where teachers identify their own professional needs
4. Moving from measuring teacher satisfaction to measuring its actual impact on student learning
5. And finally, how to simplify engagement with evidence so it feels practical rather than a chore

Thanks again to Costas, someone who’s spent years truly deconstructing the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of school improvement, for his insights into the rigorous, evidence-backed architecture PD can offer.

If you’d like to be kept up to date on when chat like this happens, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and follow me on LinkedIn @chrisjordanhk or X @chrisjordanhk

Additionally, if you would like a head start on learning how to prioritise your middle years English curriculum, head to the bottom of this podcast’s show notes or top of my stream on X to find a beta copy of my forthcoming book: Make Middle Years English Matter. You can read as much as you want and even highlight elements that you like, dislike or find confusing to help make it better.

Links:

Costas’ book: A School Leader's Guide to Leading Professional Development

Beta version of Make Middle Years English Matter