CPD

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Author of Education in Turmoil:
How Reforms Broke the System They Meant to Fix

Practical CPD for leading people, not just systems

Calm, teacher-friendly professional development for schools and trusts

About Valentine

Valentine Gale-Sides is an experienced leader, educator and consultant with over a decade of leadership across state, independent and alternative provision settings.

Valentine is the author of Education in Turmoil: How Reforms Broke the System They Meant to Fix and works with schools and trusts navigating staff retention, leadership pressure and sustainable school culture.

His experience spans Head of Department, Curriculum Manager, Board Member and Vice Principal–level leadership, allowing CPD to balance strategic thinking with a deep understanding of day-to-day school life.

Practical, honest CPD that reflects how school actually feels right now.

What This CPD Focuses On

🧠 Staff Retention 🌱 Early Career Teachers 🧭 Managing Managers 🤖 AI in Education
Building cultures where good staff want to stay. Support that moves beyond compliance and survival. Helping senior leaders develop middle leaders without burnout. Ethical, calm and genuinely useful approaches for schools.

How Valentine Works with Schools and Trusts

Valentine’s CPD supports schools to move beyond performative wellbeing and compliance-driven systems, towards leadership that is clear, humane and sustainable.

Sessions are:

  • Calm and teacher-friendly
  • Grounded in real leadership experience
  • Practical and immediately usable
  • Designed to reduce noise, not add to it

Leadership development that puts people first – without lowering expectations.

 

Book-Linked CPD: Education in Turmoil

Drawing directly on themes from Education in Turmoil: How Reforms Broke the System They Meant to Fix, these sessions explore how constant reform, accountability pressure and policy overload have reshaped schools – and how leaders can respond in ways that protect both standards and people.

Book-linked themes include:

  • Why good teachers leave, and what actually improves retention
  • Early career teachers: from survival to sustainability
  • Middle leadership under pressure
  • Managing managers without burnout
  • Rebuilding professional trust and purpose

AI in Education: A Calm, Ethical Approach

Valentine delivers grounded CPD on AI that cuts through hype and fear.

Sessions explore:

  • Using AI to support planning and workload
  • Ethical and professional boundaries
  • Supporting staff confidence and consistency
  • Leadership decision-making around AI adoption

AI is always framed as a tool to support teacher thinking, not replace professional judgement.

Supporting Leaders Who Manage Managers

A particular strength of this work is supporting senior leaders and trust teams responsible for managing managers and middle leaders.

Focus areas include:

  • Developing leadership capacity without overload
  • Role clarity and expectation setting
  • Difficult conversations and accountability
  • Moving from firefighting to purposeful leadership

Delivery Formats

  • Twilights (2–3 hours)
  • Half-day or full-day INSET
  • Leadership and middle leader development days
  • Early Career Teacher and mentor programmes
  • Trust-wide or cluster CPD packages

 

Who This CPD Is For

  • School leadership teams
  • Middle and aspiring leaders
  • Early Career Teachers and mentors
  • Trust leaders and central teams
  • Schools seeking sustainable, people-centred improvement

Enquiries

Interested in CPD for your school or trust?

Sessions can be tailored to your priorities and delivered in ways that fit your context.

📩 Get in touch to discuss availability and options