At Glossopdale School and Sixth Form one of our key priorities is to create and embed a culture of professional growth so that all staff strive to improve to be highly effective in their roles.

We want our staff development to be targeted on helping our teachers develop in areas that will have the highest impact, focusing on future performance through problem solving and setting specific goals whilst building a culture of impact driven feedback with an emphasis on staff motivation and self-reflection.

Instructional coaching allows staff development to be: -

• Individualised - feedback fits the teacher
• Quick - 15-minute lesson drop in and 30 min feedback
• Sustained - same coaching partnership for the year
• Frequent- time allocated for weekly meeting and lesson drop ins
• Focused - specific actions with deliberate practice

Our teaching staff meet weekly with their peers to drop in on lessons, identify action steps and feedback using StepLab.

You can find out more about why we chose instructional coaching and our programme here.

Whole school CPD is focused around our whole school big moves, the priorities we have for improvement. This, alongside faculty CPD, is where we cover training in developing our culture, literacy across the curriculum, subject specific pedagogy and faculty specific areas for development.

There are 3 days throughout the year where we work within our faculties to collaboratively plan in response to assessment data. This affords us the time and opportunity to really analyse and evaluate the data and identify areas for intervention, be it amending the sequencing within the curriculum or planning areas for re-teaching.

At Glossopdale School and Sixth Form, we value research and evidence. Research shows there are six core pedagogical principles which can unleash excellence: challenge, explanation, modelling, deliberate practice, questioning and feedback. These principles, coupled with strong content pedagogical knowledge and high teacher engagement with their own professional development have been evidenced to improve student progress. Our culture routines, lesson routines and learning habits are all practiced collectively during weekly deliberate practice sessions.

Teach First and ECT’s are embarking on their teaching career and we know how intensive the first years in this highly rewarding profession can be and so offer a highly specific and targeted support programme. From reduced timetables, dedicated support mentors and a school specific induction programme. Details of this year’s new staff programme can be found here.

Our last ECT review from Derbyshire County Council identified the following strengths in our ECT offering: “weekly new staff training has been found to be useful by all ECTs; Step Lab is a wealth of resource and has been really useful; school specific training, relating to pedagogy makes the training meaningful”. They also identified our weekly new staff training and the pre-planning of additional training for ECTs as an area of best practice.

More details about our ECT support programme can be found here.

Whilst our internal CPD programme is comprehensive, we recognise the value in having staff complete external programmes such as National Professional Qualification (NPQs) which are designed to provide training and support for teachers and school leaders at all levels and deliver improved outcomes for young people. Currently we have staff completing NPQs in Senior Leadership, SENCO, Leading Behaviour and Culture, and Leading Teaching. These staff are vital to the delivery and successful running of the ECT and new staff induction programme where they share their expertise with our newer teachers.

If you are interested in working at Glossopdale School and Sixth form please check out our vacancies page here or if you would like more information about what we can offer you please contact Helen James, Assistant Headteacher Inclusion: Curriculum, Pedagogy and CPD hjames@glossopdaleschool.org.uk