Staff Development

At Gleadless, we value each and every member of our staff team. We know that in order to be the adults our children and community need, it is important that we all keep learning and developing, no matter how long we have been in the profession. Since January 2021, the school has worked in partnership with the Teacher Development Trust to make sure our staff development offer is as good as possible. We were delighted in Summer 2021 to achieve the Silver award for staff development and this year we continue to work towards our Gold award!

Here is what the TDT says about CPD at Gleadless:

• Professional learning is highly valued throughout the school and there is a strong commitment to improving the quality of
teaching and learning.
• A collegial and supportive environment for adult learning is driving school improvement forwards.
• Staff recognise that the school works hard to help adults learn in school.
• Staff feel that school CPD is driven by pupil need, and that their own CPD is targeted at supporting specific pupils.
• External and internal expertise is carefully planned to support each other.
• The school has ongoing, mutually benefiting relationships with local schools.
• Evidence behind approaches of external expertise is considered when choosing expertise

This year, every member of staff is reading 'Five Formative Assessment Strategies in Action' by Kate Jones. We are working together to develop our assessment for learning practice across school, so that teaching has the greatest possible impact on pupil learning. In 2022, we introduced peer coaching as a way of supporting one another with our AfL practice. Here is what some of our staff said about this:

"It was good to have the time to implement and discuss the strategies and discuss with colleagues how they had found the research and learn from their experiences also."

"This was really beneficial as it gave time for teams to unpick the information given during the PDM and discuss key points. I think this approach would be useful for other PDM subjects/focusses moving forwards."

"All children have become more engaged in learning."

"I have noticed greater support between peers."