The Covid-19 outbreak resulted in huge challenges, pressure and change for teachers, school leaders and education systems around the world. Educators were grappling with new technologies, very different models of education and radical changes to assessment systems with no notice, whilst also seeking to manage their own wellbeing and that of their families. 

This led to an immediate problem which needed a solution - to provide teachers with the support they needed to understand what being a teacher meant in this strange new world, and to ensure the best possible provision for the children and young people they serve.

The unprecedented situation we found ourselves in necessitated changes to the way we view the role of the teacher and their status; the relationship between home and in-school learning; the part technology plays in education; the experience of children who cannot access school; the very nature and purpose of education; and, as we faced these challenges together on a global scale, a real sense of the potential power of collaboration.

The Chartered College of Teaching saw an opportunity to learn from this situation to make a real ‘big change’ in the education system for the long term by collaborating and learning from teachers globally.

In 2020, we funded the Chartered College of Teaching’s "The Education Exchange", an innovative, one-stop digital hub to support teachers in a changing world, free for all teachers internationally to sign up to and use. This hub provided a trusted, independent, single place to go for up-to-date information, recognised professional learning, opportunities for discussion, collaboration and reflection, and signposting to the best resources available around the world. 

The hub brought together expert commissioned content, fully reviewed and professionally edited user-submitted case studies, curated sign-posting to international resources, and real collaboration between teachers, school leaders and education researchers across the globe.

The strength of relationships with individuals and organisations meant that the Chartered College of Teaching was able to attract very high quality content from a diverse range of contributors and the hub has helped them to build new relationships. The Education Exchange was at the heart of a national #FutureOfTeaching campaign.

Dame Alison Peacock is the CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching. Previously, she was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire and her career has spanned primary, secondary and advisory roles. In 2018, she became an Honorary Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, one of the first ever female Fellows admitted. She is also a Visiting Professor of both the University of Hertfordshire and Glyndwr University, and is a trustee of Big Change.

A former English teacher, Dr Catherine Scutt, Deputy CEO, has focused on supporting teacher development both online and through face-to-face activities, with a particular focus on development through collaboration and through engagement with research and evidence. She has worked as a teacher and advisor in the state and independent sector, as well as in corporate learning and development.