E38. When We Know Better: Karen Gebbie-Smith and Angela Johnston

In this episode, I'm joined by Karen Gebbie-Smith, ASN Support and Development Officer with Aberdeen City Council, and Angela Johnston, Head Teacher at Daneston Primary School. Karen has built a series of professional learning book groups for senior leaders across the city and in this conversation, we focus on one of the early texts - Good Autism Practice for Teachers by Karen Watson. Angela has participated in the group and has found the text and the process so engaging and useful that she took the model back into her own school and watched it ripple outwards — into classrooms, into culture, into the way staff talk and communicate. Together we explore:How Karen came to use book groups as a professional learning tool and why a shared text has done something that ‘training’ alone often doesn't.The book itself: why it struck the balance between accessible and genuinely challenging both at a personal and collective level. The question at the heart of every session: what do you know now that you didn't know before?The shift from fixing children to examining environments and how language change drives culture change.What it takes to create a space where experienced leaders feel safe enough to say I don't know or I got that wrong.The ripple effect: from Karen's senior leader cohorts to Angela's whole-school book groups and the difference it made.Would you like to know better, to be able to do better?You can find Good Autism Practice for Teachers by Karen Watson wherever you buy your books. Or you can connect with Karen Watson via her website or her podcast.