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This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge base on leading and facilitating the growth of school improvement networks by describing the activities and challenges faced by network leaders.

A total of 19 co‐leaders from 12 networks were interviewed using a semi‐structured schedule about the growth of their network, key leadership processes, “tipping points”, structural design and knowledge flow and transfer. Annual review documents were also analysed.

Five leadership activities focused on facilitating networks were identified. These were: “courting” potential partners and developing proposals for networked activity; working for partner alignment and buy‐in into network goals and plans; creating structured opportunities for teachers to work together; embedding networked activity through formalisation and harvesting the knowledge generated by practitioners; and refocusing network efforts. These activities present tensions around negotiating purpose, securing ownership of network activity, time, trust and the balance between quick wins and long term activities.

Internationally, networks are emerging as an increasingly common organisational form as well as a method for professional development, school improvement and to better serve pupil need. This paper adds to the limited research on network leadership and addresses increased calls for the intentional development of these organisational structures.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore an application of the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) to the reading comprehension of students in kindergarten to grade five.

Findings – In this chapter, the author provides a brief review of think-alouds as a way for proficient readers to model the comprehension strategies that they apply to a text. The author introduces a three-step process in which students gradually take ownership for such strategies through think-alouds, think-alongs, and think alones. The author demonstrates that when students in kindergarten through grade five have strong models of comprehension through think-alouds, they are able to apply these strategies to their own independent reading. Though a case study of one English language arts teacher, the author shows how the teacher released responsibility to students through think-alouds.

Research limitations/implications – The examples within this chapter are from a second-grade classroom in an urban charter school.

Practical implications – This three-step process is applicable to all content areas as well as text genre and reading levels. This approach is a valuable model for teachers to understand how to gradually release comprehension strategies to students across grade levels.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter provides research-based examples of using the GRR model to build students’ ability to inference. Additionally, the chapter provides “I” language and sentence starters to help students internalize comprehension strategies and apply them to independent reading.

Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase of students with intellectual disabilities attending mainstream primary and secondary-level education in the Republic of Ireland (McConkey et al., 2017). Despite this increase, it appears that comparatively few of these students successfully transition to further/higher education and/or employment opportunities. This chapter examines typical transition support/guidance provided to students with intellectual disabilities as they prepare to complete their post-primary education in a mainstream setting. Using data from a study of school principals and school personnel responsible for career guidance and transition planning, the findings show guidance is limited for students with intellectual disabilities. Instead of being the responsibility of career guidance counsellors, guidance and transitions planning for students with intellectual disabilities are viewed as being the role of other personnel such as the school SENCO. By assigning this responsibility to special education roles in the school, students with intellectual disabilities may run the risk of having narrow and limited career options presented to them. This study raises serious questions about the effectiveness of mainstream schools in facilitating this critical transition stage for students who have intellectual disabilities.