Ingrid Sealey: Driving Education Innovation and Empowerment at Teach Well

Transforming education to create lasting impact is no easy feat. But Ingrid Sealey, founder and CEO of Teach Well, has dedicated her career to doing just that. Combining evidence-based research with practical solutions, her work is revolutionising classrooms, shaping future generations, and empowering teachers across Australia and beyond.
Teach Well, under Sealey’s visionary leadership, provides educators and school leaders with the tools they need to implement practices proven to enhance student participation, engagement, and academic outcomes. With an innovative approach centred on translating research into actionable strategies, Sealey’s impact is driving change, one classroom at a time.
Transforming Education Through Evidence-Based Practices
At the core of Teach Well’s mission is the belief that great teaching produces great outcomes. Sealey recognised early in her career that truly effective educational reform starts in the classroom. Through her work, she observed that schools focusing on research-backed teaching strategies—such as synthetic phonics and high-impact pedagogical techniques—consistently achieved remarkable progress.
Teach Well’s flagship program, the Masterclass Series, embodies this approach. This nine-month professional development experience includes workshops, video coaching, peer collaboration, and self-reflection sessions. This spaced-out structure ensures educators have ample opportunity to apply, refine, and sustain these new strategies in real classroom settings.
The results speak for themselves. An impressive 97% of participating teachers and school leaders recommended the program to their peers, highlighting its effectiveness in fostering meaningful professional growth and improving student outcomes.
From Vision to Reality: The Birth of Teach Well
Ingrid Sealey’s passion for educational equality took root during her tenure at the Fogarty Foundation in Western Australia. Working closely with schools in challenging communities, she helped implement evidence-based interventions that yielded significant improvements in student outcomes. These experiences laid the foundation for her later work and became the driving force behind Teach Well.
By addressing the gap between academic research and classroom practice, Teach Well ensures teachers are equipped not only with knowledge but also with the skills to create lasting change. “We developed a program providing high-impact instruction in such a way that if a teacher attended a course and undertook the work, they would be supported to make the changes to their classroom practice that would reliably result in more student participation, engagement, and learning,” explains Sealey.
Pioneering Video Coaching for Teacher Development
One of Teach Well’s standout innovations is its use of video coaching to enhance teacher development. This method allows educators to observe their own teaching practices and reflect critically on areas for improvement. Combined with expert feedback and guided self-reflection, video coaching empowers teachers to implement high-impact teaching methods tailored to their unique classroom dynamics.
Inspired by instructional coaching frameworks like Jim Knight’s, Sealey tailored these methods to meet the specific needs of Australian schools. This approach has not only improved teaching standards but also fostered greater collaboration and a stronger sense of professional community among educators.
Building a Thriving Community for Educators
Teach Well’s mission extends beyond individual teachers. Recognising the importance of structural change within schools, the organisation works closely with school leaders to embed high-impact teaching practices into their systems and cultures. This includes initiatives such as the Instructional Leadership Fellowship, which strengthens the instructional focus of schools through aligned professional development, collaboration, and feedback mechanisms.
By fostering a network of like-minded educators, Teach Well is creating a community committed to growth, evidence-driven strategies, and collaboration. This collective effort is not only uplifting teachers but also creating a ripple effect of improvement across entire schools and districts.
Broadening Impact Across Australia and Beyond
Teach Well’s success in empowering local educators has inspired Sealey’s vision for expansion. Currently, the program impacts over 2,000 teachers and school leaders, positively influencing the learning experiences of more than 80,000 students, including a significant proportion from regional and remote areas. These areas often face unique challenges, including higher numbers of Indigenous students with distinct educational needs.
Looking ahead, Teach Well aims to scale its operations fivefold by 2025, reaching more educators across Australia and eventually extending its impact to the Western Pacific. Sealey envisions a future where every school can confidently adopt and sustain high-impact teaching practices, ensuring students everywhere have access to quality education.
Advocacy for Lifelong Learning
At the heart of Sealey’s work is an unwavering belief in lifelong learning. Teachers and school leaders participating in Teach Well’s programs aren’t just improving their professional skills; they’re also cultivating a culture of curiosity, growth, and innovation. This fosters an environment where educators are empowered to take risks, experiment with new methods, and inspire their students to do the same.
Through continued advocacy for evidence-based teaching and her commitment to professional development, Sealey is transforming the landscape of education in Australia. Her work serves as a reminder that when teachers thrive, students succeed—and the impact of great teaching transcends the walls of the classroom.
International Recognition for Transformative Leadership
Sealey’s dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed. Earlier this year, she was celebrated at the prestigious Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI) Awards, where she earned first place among Oceania’s fellows. The recognition highlights her role as a trailblazer in addressing inequality through education.
Reflecting on her work, Sealey recounts her initial inspiration vividly: “There was a sea of red—cohorts of students who were a long way behind. Each one of those red lines was a student. Right next to those red lines were glimpses of green—students on track for success. That disparity showed me that effective teaching could change the trajectory of so many lives.”
Through Teach Well, she is ensuring that more students experience the opportunities symbolised by those green lines of success.
Empowering Educators, Transforming Futures
Education holds the power to transform lives, and Ingrid Sealey has dedicated hers to making this transformation accessible to all. Through Teach Well, she equips educators with the tools to create meaningful and lasting improvements in student outcomes. Her innovative approaches, from video coaching to instructional leadership programs, serve as a model for effective teacher development and school improvement worldwide.
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