This Guide is intended for groups of people who want to set up and run Communities of Practice (CoPs). It draws on BRIDGE’s experience in convening and managing CoPs in different focus areas in the education sector, and shares some strategies from the BRIDGE methodology for BRIDGE-run CoPs.

Regardless of its specific purpose, there are overarching outcomes for any Community of Practice which believes in the principle of

collaboration and aspires to have a positive impact on education.

BRIDGE has formulated these as follows:

• The contribution of the community to the whole system;

• Creating common purpose, peer support and trust among

stakeholders;

• The maximising of resources by the community;

• The spread of effective practice within the community and

its associated stakeholders (horizontal integration); and

• The vertical integration of policy and practice.

The Guide is aimed at people working in the education sector, whether these are from groups of schools, NPOs and NGOS, or

teachers, sector specialists or people with different roles in education who want to collaborate in a particular area. Given that education and training environments in South Africa are so diverse, many of the

strategies suggested here will need to be adapted to suit the context and needs of the CoP. In rural areas with connectivity challenges, for examples, CoPs may need very different approaches to the logistics

of scheduling and convening meetings to those in urban areas. There will be differences in the ways in which CoPs operating in under-resourced contexts and those in well-resourced contexts plan for any financial outlays.