The success of educational reforms depends largely on strong leadership and capacity to manage change. This project encouraged school leaders to become more aware of their leadership potential and come up with innovative and creative responses in leading their schools.

We aimed to support the professional development of headteachers, share experiences between Estonia and the UK, and to create the basis for the development of a self-sustaining Estonian headteacher training system.The training programme was delivered by consultants of the National College of School Leadership and by Estonian headteachers who had been trained in the project. It covered a range of subjects from school self-review to curriculum design and strategic planning with an emphasis on a practical school based project. 43 school leaders from all over Estonia participated in the project during its lifetime from 2004 to 2006.

Who is your critical friend who will help your school to become the best it can be? Is it a parent, a child, a teacher, a local businessman or someone else?

This is the question asked from the 40 schools who have participated in this project which lasted from 2002 to 2006. The project focused on helping schools to find the best self-evaluation methods to measure and find solutions to their specific challenges. Regular training events took place to equip participants with skills needed to improve their schools and each school is working on their own school improvement project. As school self-evaluation was becoming compulsory for all Estonian schools, we aimed to create a network of schools who were ready to ask the whys and hows and were not afraid to take some constructive criticism from stakeholders in their communities.

This project supports the development of a modern citizenship education curriculum in Estonian schools.

We want to help teachers of citizenship education to engage young people in contemporary issues, thus supporting the development of informed and active citizens. We believe in creating new and innovative approaches to teaching citizenship education. In this partnership project with the Estonian Exams and Qualifications Centre, a group of Estonian citizenship teachers were trained by the Citizenship Foundation UK to develop a practical manual for citizenship education teachers based on active learning methods. The materials were piloted in selected schools and will be distributed to all schools in Estonia in autumn 2006.