Teaching Sprints: How Overloaded Educators Can Keep Getting Better

Enhance teachers’ expertise – in every term, every school year.

With all of the everyday demands of teaching, the job of improving classroom practice is a challenge for teachers and school leaders. Grounded by research and field-tested around the world, Teaching Sprints offers a professional improvement process that works in theory and practice.

Including insights from the field, and practical protocols, this book outlines a simple model for engaging in short bursts of evidence-informed improvement work. Using Teaching Sprints, teams of teachers can enhance their expertise together, in a way that is sustainable on the ground. 

In Teaching Sprints, readers will find:

• three big ideas about practice improvement
• a detailed description of a simple improvement process
• advice on how to establish a routine for continual improvement

Whether you’re a classroom teacher thinking about your own practice, an instructional leader supporting colleagues to teach better tomorrow, or a school leader interested in enhancing your program for professional learning, Teaching Sprints is a must-read for you.

"Among the greatest unresolved issues within schools is developing great models of implementation: Sprints is certainly one of the breakthroughs. This book can make major improvements in schools and classrooms, ironically by focusing on tiny shifts."
John Hattie, Laureate Professor
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Melbourne, Australia

"Once in a while you come across a book that really cuts through the complexity of issues and provides a refreshing and practical approach to improving what happens in schools. This is such a book. Evidence-based, easy to read and full of down-to-earth ideas that busy teachers can implement. I love it."  
Steve Munby, Visiting Professor
University College London 
Former CEO, National College for School Leadership
London, UK

Dr Simon Breakspear is a researcher, advisor and speaker on educational leadership, policy and change. He is a Research Fellow at the Gonski Institute at UNSW in Sydney, Australia. Over the last decade his speaking and leadership development work has given him the opportunity to work with over 100,000 educators across 10 countries.

Simon develops frameworks and tools that make evidence-based ideas actionable and easy to understand. His AGILE SCHOOL LEADERSHIP program enables school leadership teams across Australia to effectively implement for impact within their unique educational context. Simon’s innovative approach to teacher professional learning, Teaching Sprints, is used by thousands of educators across the planet to enhance their expertise and engage with relevant research evidence.

Simon is a trusted strategic advisor to educational system leaders in the areas of policy implementation, school leadership development and evidence-informed practice. He serves as an advisor to the NSW Department of Education School Leadership Institute, the Australia Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and the Ontario Principals’ Council international school leadership program. He is also a Fellow of WISE.

Simon received his BPsych (Hons) from UNSW, his MSc in Comparative and International Education from the University of Oxford and his PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Oxford and a Gates Scholar at Cambridge.  Simon began his work in education as a high school teacher and lives in Sydney with his wife and three young children.

Bronwyn Ryrie Jones is a career teacher and teacher educator at the University of Melbourne (Graduate School of Education). She is also Director of Professional Practice at Teaching Sprints.

Bron commenced her teaching career just over a decade ago. Since then, she has sustained an interest in all aspects of instruction, but she is particularly interested in how teachers make sense of the best available evidence in their lived teaching experience. In each of her ranging roles, Bron is never happier than when she is working with teachers.

Bronwyn consults widely across Australia. She has worked with thousands of teachers, and hundreds of schools in metropolitan, regional and rural areas. She supports teachers to embed explicit principles of instruction, and to develop robust assessment tools. Bronwyn regularly consults with the Victorian Department of Education and various institutes of educational leadership.

Bronwyn received her Bachelor of Education from RMIT University (Melbourne) and her Masters of Education from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She recently commenced doctoral studies. Bronwyn lives in Melbourne with her partner Brett and daughter Lucie.