The Emmaus Leaders Shadowing Programme

The Emmaus Leaders Shadowing Programme: Growing Future Leaders Through Real-World Experience

If you are beginning to explore leadership, the Emmaus Leaders Shadowing Programme offers a powerful opportunity to learn alongside experienced leaders in real school contexts. Ready to launch in the Autumn term next academic year, we are inviting expressions of interest into this invaluable professional learning opportunity.

Over four half‑day shadowing sessions across two terms, participants step directly into the day‑to‑day world of senior leadership, observing, questioning, and learning from experienced colleagues in host schools. It’s a simple model with a big impact: authentic exposure, structured reflection, and meaningful professional relationships that strengthen leadership capacity across the Emmaus network.

Why the Programme Matters
Stepping into leadership isn’t always a clear or linear journey. It grows through insight, confidence, and the chance to see how others navigate the realities of school life. This programme creates that space for you; practical, relational, and rooted in the real challenges and rewards of leadership.

Benefits for Participants
Shadowing a leader over multiple sessions gives participants a rich, layered understanding of leadership practice. Through these experiences, you will:

Gain authentic insight into leadership in action — from strategic decision‑making to pastoral leadership, safeguarding, curriculum planning, and staff development.
Build your confidence — seeing leadership up close helps demystify the role and allows you to begin to see yourself in those positions.
Grow through reflection — each session gives you time to think deeply about what you’ve observed and how it relates to your own setting.
Build connections across the Emmaus family — you’ll form relationships with leaders beyond your own school, strengthening collaboration and shared learning.
Clarify your next steps — you’ll develop a clearer sense of the type of leader you want to become and the skills you want to grow.

Benefits for Host Schools

If you choose to host a participant, you’ll also benefit in meaningful ways:

You will strengthen your leadership culture — articulating your thinking and decision‑making often sharpens your own practice.
You will contribute to a culture of openness and collaboration — modelling transparency and shared learning across the Emmaus community.
You will support future leaders — helping to nurture emerging talent across the trust and strengthen long‑term capacity.
You will build relationships across schools — creating opportunities for shared thinking, problem‑solving, and connection.
You will have the chance to reflect on and showcase your own practice — and learn from the fresh perspectives your shadow brings.

Want to Get Involved?

Full details—including expectations, timelines, and the structure of the shadowing experience—are available in the next E Briefing. You’ll also find the link to Expression of Interest forms there and on the CPD padlet for both potential participants and host schools.

Whether you are considering your next step into leadership or ready to support someone else on theirs, this programme offers a chance for you to learn, reflect, and grow, together, as part of the Emmaus community.

On the Road to Emmaus

¹³Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles^[^a^] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶but they were kept from recognizing him.

¹⁷He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. ²²In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

²⁵He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” ²⁷And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

²⁸As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³²They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

³³They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together ³⁴and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” ³⁵Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.