A CPD plan for schools this new year
A new year is always a good time to renew and refresh. For all of us working in the teaching profession if we put learning at the heart of what we want to achieve for those we educate but also for ourselves we can realise the vision for excellence. We have put together a look at how Learning Cultures can create a CPD offer that is sustainable, cost-effective, innovative and that will have an impact on learning, curriculum excellence and the delivery of high quality pedagogy, well-being and whole school improvement.
The contents of this newsletter
What is coaching in an education setting?
Coaching in education is not something to add on to what is already positive in terms of structure and existing systems. Coaching enhances the capacity that already exists within every school or college. The development of a coaching culture encourages professional conversations about curriculum and how to plan and deliver high quality learning; it is about focusing on pedagogy and creating opportunities for teachers to work together to celebrate what works well, reflect on the impact their teaching has on learning and be innovative and creative with their practice.
- Learning to listen acitvely fosters trust and a deep understanding of an individual’s strengths, needs and aspirations
- Learning how to use questioning in a really positive way encourages reflection, a shared perception and purposeful action
- Developing incisive feedback strategies motivates, challenges and leads to positive and highly effective change
- Encouraging goal setting and prioritising actions leads to positive team building and a collective approach to high quality outcomes for all staff and pupils
Developing a coaching approach is all about creating a culture of positivity where there is a tacit belief that everyone within the organisation has the capacity to grow in their role. Failure is seen as a jewel that shines like a diamond and provides the opportunity to learn from mistakes or misunderstandings. The obvious truth here is not that failure is tolerated but that everyone, staff and learners, understands that they may not immediately succeed and will learn to find solutions and answers to problems over time and with the trust and support of others.
Why coaching is such a powerful model for leaders in education?
Creating the right leadership style and building teams that can deliver the vision is essential. Creating the right culture where learning is at the heart of defining curriculum intent, planning for effective professional development and building powerful and high quality systems all need careful consideration.This is why coaching is such a powerful tool in the leadership box for any organisation that has learning at its core. Creating a coaching culture is all about empowerment, leading others to find their own solutions, building communities that share their practice and having the unstinting belief that all those within the organisation have the potential to flourish and grow.
Creating a culture of professional learning and development
The many facets of leadership in education require leaders to think carefully about how they will create a culture where professional learning and development deliver the vision and ambition that leads to sustained success. The team at Learning Cultures have all been senior leaders of education excellence so we know that the starting point may be different for each leader and all those that make up their team of senior staff. There are potentially five points that need consideration in the process of deciding to pursue a course of action defined by a coaching strategy,
- Knowing your strengths and the attributes that lead to positive and decisive leadership
- Defining the vision linked to high quality goals and priorities for change
- Developing highly successful teams who can interpret and are trusted to deliver the vision
- Creating a culture where learning is at the heart of everything
- Instigating strategies and systems where collaboration and partnership are at the heart of delivering high quality education outcomes through the deliberate setting up of professional learning communities
- Building self-belief, positive attitudes to feedback and a tacit belief that all staff and learners can make progress and ultimately be successful in their endeavours
Leading a Coaching Culture – Where to start?
- Share your vision and goals for continuous improvement with an executive coach for a series of one-to-one coaching sessions
- Be a part of our live webinar Coaching for Senior Leaders in an Education Setting and begin your coaching journey
- Sign up for our Senior Leadership Coaching Training Programme and work towards a Certificate in Leadership Coaching
- Come along to our next coaching event Celebrating the Power of Coaching in Education in Birmingham and hear how coaching creates the catalyst for change and challenge that leads to high quality learning and excellence in whole school or college improvement
- Plan your coaching journey with one of our team of exceptional coaches and have a look at our suite of coaching courses
- Embark on a journey to become a coach with our Certificate in Coaching Competence – A journey in coaching
The Vocabulary of the Curriculum
Senior, middle and subject leaders, teachers and their support staff need to work in synergy to share a common understanding of what the curriculum is intending to deliver and how it will be delivered within subjects, in cross-curricular contexts and as an integral part of supporting pupils to access, retain and recall knowledge and develop a range of skills that will allow them to deepen their learning over time. The curriculum has a distinct vocabulary and all those who have some sort of pupil facing or curriculum developer role must acknowledge and use in their planning and delivery.
- The quality of education
- The substance of education
- Building on prior learning
- Working towards clearly defined end points
- Knowledge-rich content
- Breadth and depth of coverage
- Parity for all learners including those with SEND
- Sequencing the learning over time
- Consistent and positive formative assessment
- Mastery learning within all subjects
- Well-being in education
- Raising Attainment and Well-being – a programme of professional development
It is a long list and probably not exhaustive. Each one of the above phrases needs a lot of unpicking and every leader, manager teacher and member of a support team need to know how to share their understanding of what these terms mean in the process of planning and delivering the curriculum whether in early years, the primary stages or in key stage 3, 4 and beyond. It is the curriculum and how it is translated from a vision into a reality that is at the heart of defining quality in relation to the success of otherwise of a school or college.
Creating a culture of collaboration and professional learning conversations
Synergy and a shared commitment to deliver excellence across all subjects in all stages of education is a fundamental starting point. Senior leaders have the responsibility for defining the vision, the rationale and the ambition for what they want the curriculum to achieve for all learners within their sphere. Translating that into deeply meaningful knowledge and skills that will lead to deep learning must be part of a collaboration where a collective understanding of what creates high quality outcomes for all learners is paramount.
Glynis Frater our founder and Director of Continuing Professional Development is about to publish her first of two books Designing and Delivering the Primary Curriculum. It will be available from 23rd March 2023. Its sister publication Designing and Delivering the Secondary Curriculum will be published next year.
Creating a culture where all those with a pupil facing role are confident in their ability to talk about their own knowledge of curriculum vocabulary, the pedagogy that flows from it and the impact it has on how pupils learn will reap the evidence that the school or college is delivering the highest quality education.
Glynis’s research and exceptional knowledge of the theory and practice relating to curriculum design and delivery across all phases is wide and profound. The courses, resources, materials and activities that flow from her and the remarkable team we have here at Learning Cultures provide a unique opportunity to build a deeper understanding of how to create a curriculum offer that will lead to positive outcomes for all learners. Choose from the ones listed here,
- Creating a Knowledge Rich and High Quality Primary Curriculum from Early Years to Year 6
- Defining the Quality of Education: What creates an outstanding secondary curriculum
- Sequencing Science in the Primary Curriculum and Key Stage 3
- SEND and Widening Participation
- Enhancing Reading and Literacy across the Secondary Curriculum
- Crossing the Transition Bridge – Seamless learning from key stage 2 to 3
Have a look at our curriculum page on our website
Why is what we deliver for schools and colleges different?
A coaching vein runs through everything we design and deliver. Coaching is a powerful model with which to build the most effective CPD programmes. Coaching is also a pedagogy or it mirrors the characteristics of exceptional or outstanding teaching. A coach:
- believes that everyone has the potential to improve and succeed
- listens actively to gain insight and clarity and to foster interactive and trusting conversations that reveal what is at the heart of fostering effective learning
- asks questions that challenge and probe and create an opportunity to ensure the learner is encouraged to continue to learn and grow towards the achievement of a goal or set of objectives
- builds an atmosphere of trust where encouragement and a belief that failure leads to learning will ensure the learner is willing to continue to find out more and reflect and review the knowledge and the skills they are developing
- clarifies and revisits the learning so that learners have many opportunities to consolidate their learning over time
- gives positive feedback and creates for the learner self-belief and the motivation to continue to learn
- celebrates success, works in partnership to promote what is working well and looks for opportunities for continuing professional learning with learners, peers and in teams
We build in opportunities to use coaching as a vehicle for peer to peer interaction, focusing on feedback particularly for formative assessment and learning how to listen actively to learners and ask questions that challenge and probe and that create for the learner the need to be a part of the process of deep learning.
The content is always interactive, practical and focused on a shared experience that can be used again and again with colleagues to strengthen the learning for the recipient of the training and cascade the learning to others back in their own environment. We provide a range of resources including card sorts, proforma, research and other challenging activities that require recipients to ask and be expected to answer soul searching questions about their own practice, their goals for their future professional learning and what they will take back to share with others. Everything we use is available after the training as an electronic folder of materials that can be shared and disseminated.
Have a look at the coaching section on our website
Our CPD offer for teachers
We are all teachers, so although this is a specific focus on teaching and learning and the classroom it is also relevant to anyone who works in a school or college, shaping the vision, planning and delivering the curriculum or developing the pastoral process. Excellent pedagogy and learning is an essential element of what a school or college is aiming for and is the ultimate product linked to the ultimate customer, the learner.
Our training courses for teachers specifically include,
- Coaching Towards Outstanding Teaching and Learning
- Coaching Training for ECT mentors
- Formative Assessment – essential in the building of high quality curriculum impact
- SEND and Widening Participation
- Crossing the Transition Bridge – moving from primary to secondary school
- Sequencing Science in the Primary School and in Key Stage 3
- Enhancing Reading and Literacy across the Secondary Curriculum
- Enhancing the Role of the Numeracy Coordinator
For the subject leader and their teams we have a superb suite of courses
Coaching for Subject Leaders – building seamless curriculum excellence
Our Expert Series looks in detail at the curriculum and how to deliver a knowledge rich, skills focused and seamless offer across the range of foundation subjects in key stage 2 and 3
- Creating the Expert Science Teacher
- Creating the Expert History Teacher
- Creating the Expert Geography Teacher
- Creating the Expert Teacher of Design Technology
- Creating the Expert Music
- Creating the Expert Art and Design Teacher
A certification route for teachers
Our Certificate in Coaching Competence – A journey in coaching provides a three module programme for teachers to work with their peers to develop as coaches and enhance their professional status as well as deepening their pedagogical repertoire by developing and practising a range of coaching skills.
We can deliver INSET or in-house workshops for teachers and their support staff to develop the pedagogy of independent, confident and solutions focused learning and understanding.
Have a look at our CPD for Teachers page on our webiste
Well-being in Education
Well-being, ensuring sound mental health and an effective pastoral process work together to make sure all staff and all learners are ready for learning, can forge constructive relationships and develop positive attitudes and behaviours. Creating a collaborative and caring culture is an essential element of protecting well-being and we have the CPD that can make a difference.
Our suite of courses linked to well-being in education
- Creating a Culture of Positive Mental Heath and Well-being
- Building Positive Behaviours and Attitudes on the Classroom and Beyond
- Coaching and the Pastoral Role
- Managing the Pupil Premium to Close the Achievement Gap
- Enhancing the Role of the SENCO – creating a culture of inclusion, parity and deep learning
- SEND and Widening Participation
Raising Attainment and Well-being – a programme of professional development
- Improving the emotional well-being and mental health in an education setting for staff and pupils
- Re-examining a whole school community’s relationship with ‘behaviour’ and ‘behaviour management’, creating a culture and practice that is trauma informed and relationship driven
- Applying the latest knowledge in the neuroscience of learning to create classrooms that support neuro-diverse learners through grounded cognitive and metacognitive practice
- Removing individual barriers to learning through the advanced deployment of assisted technology
Raising Attainment and Well-being – working in conjunction with the Teaching Times and Microlink to provide coaching support for schools who have bought into this amazing programme Raising Attainment and Well-being. It covers,
Why we are working in partnership to deliver this programme
This programme helps teaching professionals to understand what they can do to create an inclusive learning environment that supports and nurtures the highest possible levels of emotional well-being through building social and emotional resilience by meeting the needs of neuro-diverse learners, thereby accelerating progress and securing better personal outcomes.
Ask us how you can be involved 01746 765076 or email glynis@learningcultures.org
