Professional Learning Hubs
The Centre for Teaching Excellence will operate through a national network of Professional Learning Hubs across Scotland. Our three core regional hubs will go live in August 2025, with three thematic hubs, shaped by responses to our national survey, launching from January 2026.
Together, these hubs will enable regional collaboration while contributing to a national programme of teacher-led, research-informed professional learning.
Each hub will support:
- Locally relevant professional learning and practitioner enquiry
- Thematic communities of practice
- Opportunities for teachers to engage with research and with one another
We are currently in the design and development phase, with the first wave of hub activity launching in August 2025, and national collaboration events running through to March 2026.
We will continue to share updates on the hubs, including how to get involved, via our website and social media channels.
Professional Learning Hubs provide teachers entry points for involvement with research in various ways. Hub leads work with teachers to determine and shape specific hub activities according to teachers’ needs. Such activities might include, but not be limited to:
- Research briefs: Research briefs synthesise current international research in the hub’s areas of focus. Each brief is written with teachers in mind and provides provocations for reflection and opportunities for further investigation and applications to practice.
- Professional conversations and expert panel discussions: These include live, in-person, online, hybrid, synchronous and asynchronous sessions on popular topics relevant to each hub topic.
- Facilitation of communities of practice: Communities of practice are formed around particular questions, activities, and/or dilemmas identified in each hub. Communities of practice take a range of forms. Some are physical groups meeting within a research-practice partnership in the local area where each hub is housed. Some are fully online groups that are synchronous, asynchronous, or hybrid in nature. Some exist within another structured learning activity, such as a synchronous or asynchronous course.
- Longitudinal practitioner inquiry groups on teaching, learning, and assessment related to the hub theme. Practitioner inquiry groups are a particular type of community of practice and are formed in similar possible configurations as those named above.
Core Hubs
Teaching-Focused Research Core Hub
The Teaching-Focused Research Hub is located at the University of Glasgow in the School of Education (Gilmorehill campus). It supports all other hubs by producing materials, facilitating activities, and providing strategic support for all research-related activities within CfTE. Research briefs, expert panels and sessions, and activities focus on research practice partnership development and support, communities of practice around supporting teacher research activities, practitioner enquiry focused on research engagement, and the facilitation of the sharing of experiences and findings across all hubs.
Expert sessions, webinars, and activities:
- Preparing for and engaging in practitioner enquiry
- Providing strategic leadership to support teacher involvement with research
- Teacher research involvement: Stories from the field
- Sharing enquiry findings
Facilitation of communities of practice: Communities of practice focus on how to locate, synthesize, and use research in lesson planning, teaching and assessment. The physical hub develops activities within its existing partnerships in Glasgow and the West of Scotland.
Longitudinal practitioner enquiry groups focus on how teachers use research to improve particular problems of practice and how school leaders can support teacher enquiry and research use.
Rural Education and Learning for Sustainability Core Hub
The Rural Education and Learning for Sustainability Hub is based at University of Glasgow in the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability (Dumfries campus). It provides in-person and digital support for teachers across rural areas of Scotland to engage in and with research through practitioner enquiry, communities of practice and research-practice partnerships. Podcasts, webinars, teacher blogs and panel discussions will be used to share research evidence and innovative practice in rural education and Learning for Sustainability. The hub strives to ensure that the work of the Centre is accessible to and appropriate for teachers working in rural settings, including islands.
Gaelic Education Core Hub
The Gaelic Education Hub is based at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye and provides research-informed support and activities – in-person and digitally – for teachers working in Gaelic education throughout Scotland. With a focus on national and international research on immersion education, the hub will offer research briefings, communities of practice, professional conversations and research partnerships to support engagement in practitioner enquiry and the sharing of evidence with other professionals to enhance Gaelic education outcomes. The hub also facilitates access in Gaelic to research-related materials generated by the Centre’s other hubs.
Upcoming Activities in the Core Hubs
- Introduction to CfTE’s approach to professional learning: A professional conversation among CfTE leads: June, 2025
- Practitioner enquiry as a method for reflection and praxis: An expert panel discussion, June, 2025
- Practitioner enquiry and communities of practice groups: Supporting teacher engagement with research, sign-ups begin late June, 2025; programs begin September, 2025