The need for change in the education system is obvious and overwhelming. But each stakeholder group has its own ideas about why the system is broken and how to fix it. Competing priorities, political inertia and diminishing budgets maintain the dysfunctional status quo. This essential text examines the underlying causes behind the key challenges facing schools and argues that we need to move from knowledge transfer systems to a deliberately developmental approach that transforms capabilities including emotional regulation, systems thinking, critical analysis, creativity and collaborative capability.

The chapters provide a framework for designing, constructing and implementing school systems that can transform the outcome in a classroom, school or trust.

Topics covered include:

• Why education is a ‘wicked’ problem
• Why development must be central and sit alongside knowledge transfer (as AI takes over ‘expertise’)
• How motivation and value systems evolve and are key to change
• How to drive behaviour change to transform outcomes
• What human-centred means now in a reinvented system

Offering much-needed insights, guidance and solutions for teachers, school leaders and policy-makers, this book will be valuable reading for all those interested in school improvement and education policy.

Alan Watkins is the CEO and Founder of Complete, a consultancy that specialises in developing exceptional leadership, globally, through individual and team development.

Matt Silver is the CEO and Founder of The Glass House Leadership Lab, an educational coaching and co-consultancy group that believes the catalyst to system transformation is the personal development of leaders, teachers and learners.