There is a growing need to accelerate leadership development in schools in England because a large number of senior staff in schools are due to retire or otherwise leave the profession prematurely. Already there are problems in identifying suitably experienced candidates to appoint to such posts.The authors have investigated leadership development practices in education, as well as in private and public sector organizations in the UK and elsewhere. They captured the lessons learned from this research and share ways to speed up the process of developing leaders in schools by planning and assisting their learning from experience and from formal learning opportunities.