p3. Introduction
Working with you to provide the very best education for every student by providing the very best professional development for every member of staff and governors.
The characteristics of CPD that researchers have found to have positive outcomes include:
- the use of specialist expertise linked to school-based activity;
- peer support or coaching, including observation, to provide a safe environment for experimentation;
- scope for participants to identify their own CPD focus and starting points;
- processes to encourage, extend and structure professional dialogue, reflection and change;
- processes for sustaining the CPD over time.
Our shared belief is that schools improve themselves. As a consequence the Secondary Team works in a way that is designed to build capacity for school-based improvement that is sustainable. The team is committed to working with schools to help them achieve the priorities in their improvement plans.
This partnership working is designed to emphasise the continuous nature of professional development that results in changes in practice, in an environment of trust that permits experimentation and facilitates self-evaluation through professional dialogue.
Increasingly the development programme will allow staff and governors to decide when, where and how they undertake professional development activities. All schools are provided with support as an entitlement, with the level of support differentiated according to the needs of the school, in line with the Local Authorities School Improvement policy. Schools may also negotiate support beyond this entitlement, for which a charge will be made.
