Leading Together
When your leadership team thrives, your pupils thrive.
Build a stronger school leadership team with our fully-funded programme.
- Develop your entire senior leadership team and build more capacity.
- Bespoke support for your school, tailored to your needs.
- Fully-funded for schools.
- Accelerate your school’s improvement strategy and create lasting, sustainable change.
- Learn and implement evidence-based best practice.
Duration
Two years
Only available to eligible schools. For more information see 'Apply'
Create a school environment where pupils can thrive for years to come.
Benefits
Your school’s challenges are bigger than ever. But handling these challenges shouldn’t be down to a headteacher alone.
Leading Together is a free, two-year programme aimed at primary and secondary schools that builds and sustains strong leadership across your entire senior leadership team.
With bespoke support and expert coaching and training we can help accelerate your school's improvement journey.
Develop strong leadership across your entire senior team
Leading Together is unique in that we work with your entire senior leadership team, collectively growing their ability to deliver sustainable improvements across your whole school.
Dedicated support for your school, tailored to your needs
Now more than ever, it’s vital to have strong school leadership.
Over two years, your senior leadership team will work closely alongside one of our Achievement Partners – an experienced coach and former senior school leader that we match with your school.
They’ll support, guide and coach your senior leadership team to understand the specific challenges your school faces and create a robust plan that tackles them in the long-term.
Accelerate school improvement and create sustainable change
The programme equips your leadership team with the capacity and expertise to make changes that last across your entire school.
Our programme’s mix of learning and support provides your team with the knowledge and skills to identify and implement sustainable improvements – and make positive changes for your pupils.
Learn and implement evidence-based best practice
The programme’s learning modules are built around the latest research and best practice to make a real, long-term impact. Delivered with a blend of face-to-face and virtual sessions, they’re focused on key aspects of school leadership such as curriculum, assessment, developing others, strategic planning and implementing change.
From our recent survey of programme members who completed the programme in 2023:
- 94% of survey programme members strongly agreed that the programme improved their use of evidence-informed strategies for school improvement.
- 98% of surveyed programme members rated that quality of the programme as “good” or “very good”.
- 100% of surveyed programme members rated the support from their Achievement Partner as “good or “very good”.
Need more information?
Learn more about our Achievement Partners and their breadth of expertise.
Leading Together at Moorlands Primary School
96% of surveyed programme members
rated the quality of the programme as “good” or “very good”.
Our motivation for joining Leading Together was rooted in the school we are, the journey we’re on and getting the right support with that journey.
Impact
Leadership matters
Leadership is a crucial element in successful outcomes for pupils. Where leadership in schools is good, schools are more likely to improve their Ofsted category.
- Schools are ten times more likely to improve at their next Ofsted inspection with effective leadership.
- Improving the whole leadership team has up to four times greater impact on pupil outcomes than focusing on individual ‘super heads’.
- Nearly nine out of ten teachers and leaders say leadership training should involve the whole team.
- Nine out of ten teachers say they’re more likely to stay at their school if they’re supported into leadership roles (Ofsted data).
Leading Together drives change
We know that Leading Together has made a real difference to schools. An independent study carried out by the NFER (PDF) found that Leading Together:
- improved leaders’ confidence to support pupils’ learning as part of whole school development priorities
- helped schools developed their curriculum design, internal monitoring and evaluation of progress
- boosted teaching quality – with the support of their Achievement Partner, schools structured their teaching to prevent cognitive overload and facilitate retrieval practice
Programme members particularly valued the bespoke support from their Achievement Partner, which includes one-to-one and team coaching. As one school leader said:
For me, my Achievement Partner was a lifeline. She wasn’t there to tell me about the problems. She was there to help me identify them and figure out ways to overcome them. I could email her, speak to her on the phone and she came in to see me. She also offered coaching for staff about how they could develop in the school, which was fantastic.
Chris Tolson, Headteacher at the Academy at St James
Need more information?
Looking for a different leadership programme?
Thriving leadership teams build thriving schools. Take the next step with a free Senior Leadership course.
Learn more about our Achievement Partners and their breadth of expertise.
100% of surveyed programme members
rated the support from their Achievement Partner as “good or “very good”.
What I really enjoyed about the programme was how it focused on teaching and learning pedagogy, curriculum and behaviour. These are issues that are relatable to a school in our context.
Programme
Built around your school’s needs
Leading Together is delivered in four phases over two years, with close support throughout from your Achievement Partner - an experienced school leadership expert who’ll we’ll match with you to address your school’s specific goals. Learn more about our Achievement Partners and their breadth of expertise.
- Diagnose – analyse your school’s priorities and strengths to identify the strategic improvements you want to focus on.
- Build – devise, test and implement new ways to achieve these goals. Individual senior leaders will build knowledge in key areas through a series of learning modules.
- Embed and drive – further learning modules and coaching will help school leaders consolidate and secure improvements made to provide day-to-day benefits for all teachers and pupils.
- Sustain – leaders reflect on what’s worked and how to weave a permanent culture of ongoing development throughout your school.
A mix of training and support
Your Achievement Partner will guide and support you throughout the two years by tailoring the programme to your school’s context and needs.
Your Achievement Partner delivers the programme for your team in several ways:
With team and individual coaching – The Achievement Partner coaches and works with your senior leadership team for the full two years, based on your school's needs. They won’t tell you what to do but they will support and challenge you, helping your senior leaders create plans and pinpoint expertise that your school really needs.
Along the way they will work alongside your senior leadership team to:
- Understand your school's needs.
- Support robust planning.
- Implement strategies that will have a lasting impact across the whole school.
Learning modules
Focusing on key aspects of school leadership, modules can be spread across the senior leadership team to fit in with their responsibilities. Each module helps programme members to build knowledge of good leadership and apply that knowledge to your school’s specific circumstances.
In-person and virtual delivery
The learning modules are delivered by your Achievement Partner and other Teach First experts through a combination of face-to-face and virtual activity, creating opportunities for learning that is both collaborative and self-paced.
Annual conference
When you join Leading Together, you’ll be invited to attend our annual conference. You’ll join one of the regional events, with dates tailored by location. Dates for next year will be announced soon.
The conference will support your leadership team to explore evidence-informed content, hear from experts and connect with other schools in your region to share best practice.
Bespoke support
Your Achievement Partner will provide bespoke support to address your school's priorities and work with the senior leadership team to identify any additional expertise that can help the school progress.
Your school will also be connected to the Teach First community - a goldmine of support and resources. For example, our corporate supporters can provide free access to business advisers and coaches. Plus, our NPQ programmes are open to all teachers and leaders in your school.
Through networking and collaboration
Create lasting support networks with schools in your local community and beyond. This includes collaborating with other schools on the programme that have been on a similar journey.
We also hold networking opportunities that bring your senior leaders together with educational experts, leaders from other schools across the UK and the wider Teach First community – all well-positioned to help your school improve.
Need more information?
Want to join Leading Together?
To express your interest, fill in our online form:
Looking for a different leadership programme?
Thriving leadership teams build thriving schools. Take the next step with a Senior Leadership course:
Learn more about our Achievement Partners and their breadth of expertise.
94% of surveyed programme members
strongly agreed that the programme improved their use of evidence-informed strategies for school improvement.
Leading Together was the key to unlocking the leadership potential in staff at Holybrook Primary and transforming the school and the local community.
Cost
What’s the cost?
There isn’t one. The programme is funded by our generous supporters. Our funders are committed to ending educational inequality and believe supporting excellence in school leadership can help achieve this.
The value of our programme is worth £40,000 – this is all free of cost to your school so you can access the support to help your leadership team grow and achieve your school’s goals.
Need more information?
Want to join the Leadership programme?
To express your interest, fill in our online form:
Learn more about our Achievement Partners and their breadth of expertise.
What I’d say to a primary school thinking of joining the programme - it's a good opportunity for your leadership team to have some dedicated time together and take a step back from school and the day-to-day goings-on and actually look at your priorities.
Apply
Eligibility
Leading Together is about making a lasting difference to the lives of disadvantaged children. That’s why we work with the primary and secondary schools facing the greatest challenges.
To apply, you need to be working at a school that is either a Teach First partner or eligible to be one. That means your school must be in England and teach a high number of pupils from low-income backgrounds.
Our criteria are agreed with the Department for Education (DfE) and used to identify schools that will benefit most from working with us. We use the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) and Pupil Premium (PP) information for each school to guide us.
We work with schools that are ranked in the top 70% most deprived areas (based on IDACI) and where the proportion of pupils eligible for pupil premium is in the top 50% of all state-funded schools.
We prioritise places for schools in Ofsted Categories 3 and 4, or at risk of moving into these categories at their next inspection. However, we also accept applications from Category 2 schools in certain cases to help schools build continued and sustainable improvements.
How to apply
Applications are now open for 2026’s Leading Together programme, starting in March. If you’re interested, please register your interest and a member of our team will be in touch.
Want to learn more about the Leading Together?
To express your interest, fill in our online form:
We’ll be in touch to talk about next steps and share further information.
If you're part of a school considering taking the Leading Together programme, absolutely do it. The benefits are way beyond what you expect them to be: it will build your leadership team and develop skills within each staff member.
National Professional Qualifications (NPQs)
Leadership matters. Make a real impact with our NPQs, rated outstanding by Ofsted in all areas.
