Lead Practitioner Accreditation
Lead Practitioner Accreditation is a professional learning process that drives whole-school improvement by building a culture of evidence-informed teaching and learning.

Start date
Flexible (up to 2 years to complete)

Format
Online

Available for individuals and school cohorts.
Lead Practitioner(LP) Accreditation is a nationally recognised status of excellent practice in education.
For the individual who wishes to be recognised for leadership of learning, the LP process provides a structure that enables you to develop and flourish. It supports your teacher career progression, to develop both yourself and colleagues you work with, across your school or multi-academy trust.
Click on the ‘Book as an Individual’ below to discover more about what LP can do for you.
If you are a school leader looking to motivate and retain staff, deliver on school improvement priorities and enrich student and pupil experiences, a cohort of Lead Practitioners can turn whole-school priorities into tangible classroom impact.
Click on the ‘Book as a Cohort’ to discover how the Lead Practitioner framework can enhance your curriculum implementation and leadership of learning.
Free Aspiring Lead Practitioner Briefings
These free twilight briefings are an opportunity to find out more about the programme, what makes LP accreditation unique, and the potential outcomes for individuals and cohorts.
Programme benefits
- Celebrating practitioners on an individual level: This accreditation improves professional skills and expertise, helping embed and extend teaching and learning in your school that impacts positively on learners.
- Leaders of learning: Provides a framework and set of standards for international benchmarking. Once accredited, LPs continue their journey inspiring others to embrace LP standards and creating communities of learners across the system.
- Peer support: Cohort participants are supported by and inspired by their peers.
- Evidence of impact: Outcomes are more immediate, measurable, and transferrable due to the large scale of LP.
- Collaborative learning culture: Fosters confidence in developing and testing ideas.
- Recruitment and retention: Establishes an evidence-informed culture in schools, attracting and inspiring staff.
Becoming a Lead Practitioner
For the individual who wishes to be recognised for leadership of learning, the LP process provides a structure that enables you to develop and flourish.
Gaining accreditation involves a rigorous, but not onerous self-evaluation, where individuals must meet all key areas of the Lead Practitioner framework of professional standards. This accreditation, whether you’re a teacher, leader or support staff, will enable you to influence others’ practice, driving impact on their professional development as well as your own.
LP allows you to be valued, celebrated and recognised for your excellent practice in education. It supports your teacher career progression and leadership of learning to develop yourself and colleagues you work with, across your school or multi-academy trust.
Join a national cohort of aspiring Lead Practitioners
School and LPLC cohorts receiving tailored support sessions remain unchanged, but for all individual LPs, you have the option of joining a national cohort, where you will join online support seminars and have the opportunity to network with other aspiring LPs from a range of settings.
You can sign up at any time during the year and will be allocated to the next available cohort.
Seminar 1: Meet your cohort
16:00 – 18:00
Introduces aspirant LPs to the detail of the programme, identifying ways of tying accreditation in with school development priorities. In the seminar, aspirant LPs will consider what it means to be an SSAT Lead Practitioner, how the framework of standards guides and supports their impact, and how activity towards accreditation can be evidenced.
Seminar 2: Review and opportunity for questions
16:00 – 17:00
A review point to ensure all aspirant LPs are on track and building their portfolio over time. An opportunity to share progress to date, ask questions of LP experts and network with cohort colleagues.
Seminar 3: Review and opportunity for questions
16:00 – 17:00
An opportunity for aspiring LPs to ask questions, share progress.
Seminar 4: Application support ahead of submission
16:00 – 18:00
Support session in advance of the gateway deadline to ensure applications are on track for submission.
Seminar dates
Seminar 1 | Seminar 2 | Seminar 3 | Seminar 4 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cohort C | 21/03/2024 | |||
Cohort D | 28/11/2023 | 20/03/2024 | ||
Cohort E | 09/01/2024 | 23/04/2024 | ||
Cohort F | 21/11/2023 | 18/01/2024 | 24/04/2024 | |
Cohort G | 22/11/2023 | 13/12/2023 | 31/01/2024 | 25/04/2024 |
Cohort H | 12/12/2023 | 25/01/2024 | 08/05/2024 | 24/09/2024 |
Cohort I | 24/01/2024 | 06/03/2024 | 09/05/2024 | 25/09/2024 |
Whole-school Lead Practitioner cohorts
LP is an inspiring, motivating and engaging programme that can improve morale and teacher retention.
Improving teaching and learning across your whole-school, network, MAT or Teaching School Alliance, Lead Practitioner provides consistent professional development disciplines rooted in action research and evidence-based teaching and learning.
The standards of becoming a Lead Practitioner ensures quality assurance at every stage and empowers professionals and schools to improve together, in all settings and phases. Effectively, Lead Practitioners can turn whole-school priorities into tangible classroom impact.
Accredited status is awarded to individuals, but is most powerful when adopted on a whole-school basis or across a cluster of schools with a Lead Practitioner cohort being supported to:
- Recruit, retain and develop future leaders of learning.
- Evaluate each individual’s impact, identifying their strengths and areas to develop.
- Build a culture of, evidence-informed teaching and learning.
- Introduce a framework of standards and structure a school-wide or trust-wide professional development plan with impact at its core.
Whole school cohorts may request support sessions tailored to their context. These support sessions will provide your cohort with opportunities to explore school improvement priorities in your setting, which deliver on your improvement plans, as well as establishing cross cohort collaboration with all of your aspiring LPs. This is particularly helpful where support staff are part of an LP cohort.
Purchase of the tailored support sessions attracts a discounted individual LP accreditation fee, please enquire for more detail.
For schools who aren’t in a position to implement a whole school cohort yet, individual LPs are still able to follow the national cohort route as individual LPs. (see Book as an Individual)
How is the programme delivered?
Gaining accreditation involves a rigorous, but not onerous self-evaluation, where individuals must meet all key areas of the Lead Practitioner framework of professional standards.
We offer support for all aspiring LPs, who might be looking to translate theory into practice.
The LP Reference Library: Whether you are an individual LP, or part of a school or Lead Practitioner Learning Centre (LPLC) cohort already benefiting from tailored support sessions, all aspiring LPs now get access to a comprehensive reference library which engages with research, defines classroom innovation and provides support and guidance to influence others’ teaching practice.
LP Learning Centre Cohort: Situated around the country, LP Learning Centres (LPLC) are proven centres of excellence for LP accreditation. An LPLC cohort brings together aspiring LPs from a region to collaborate on the journey to LP accreditation.
School Cohort: For schools wishing to drive specific school or MAT improvement priorities, or where the school has aspirations in becoming an LPLC, we offer support sessions delivered by SSAT experts which are tailored to the school or MAT.
LP National Cohort: All individual LPs have the option of being part of a national cohort, where you will join online support seminars and have the opportunity to network with other aspiring LPs from a range of settings.
Accreditation status lasts for three years. Already an SSAT-accredited Lead Practitioner? Find out how to maintain your status with re-accreditation.
Who is the programme for?
Teachers, support staff and leaders at an individual or cohort level, in any phase. This professional accreditation is open to all who lead learning within their school or MAT.
Programme leader
Andy Williams has substantial experience of providing high quality training and support for schools and school leaders, based on his extensive experience in the fields of teaching and leadership. Working with school leaders as programme lead for the TEEP and Lead Practitioner Programmes, Andy is consistently evaluated as excellent recognising his ability to design and deliver inspiring, impactful and highly focused educator training.
Passionate about the transformative potential of education, Andy has proven impact at a strategic and operational level through providing high quality training and support for schools across all settings.
Book a call with Andy Williams, Senior Education Lead
Schools wishing to establish their own cohorts and/or interested in becoming a centre of excellence for LP accreditation can book a call with the LP programme leader, Andy Williams.
Book call
Date and location
Online
The impact of Lead Practitioner Accreditation

Retrieval practice: A whole school focus
Janina Stromfield, Curriculum Leader of Science at Sackville School has recently been accredited as a Lead Practitioner. In this blog she explains why she focused on retrieval practice and how Lead Practitioner Accreditation helped her to embed this beyond her department and achieve whole-school impact.

Making the most of Lead Practitioner Accreditation
Sunny Gunessee is a Lead Practitioner for teaching and learning. Having recently been accredited as a Lead Practitioner, he has been reflecting on the last 12 months, the opportunities this has provided for his professional development as well as his role in leading his school in their journey towards excellence.

Lead practitioner: making an impact where it counts
As a large 3-18 Outstanding British Curriculum School in Dubai, we recruit and develop incredible teachers, some of whom don’t always aspire to senior leadership level.
Lead Practitioner Accreditation brochure
This brochure includes case studies explaining how the accreditation has an impact on whole-school improvement.
Want to know more?
Click below to register your interest in
Lead Practitioner Accreditation.

Any questions?
Contact us or call 020 7802 0955.
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