Winchester Staff Professional Development

According to the Teaching and Development Agency for Schools in the UK, Professional development consists of reflective activity designed to improve a teacher’s attributes, knowledge, understanding and skills. It supports the teacher’s needs and improves professional practice.

Teachers are lifelong learners and ongoing education is an integral part of working in the teaching field. One of the perks of working at Winchester and being part of the GEMS network of schools is the wonderful opportunities for Professional Development that our teachers have access to. We have an internal PD calendar of professional development events and an external GEMS calendar of events.

Examples of PD activities in the internal and external calendar include, PD meetings, conferences and courses, coaching and mentoring, peer support, leadership training, lesson observations and feedback.

In addition to this, The Winchester School is aiming to enrol at least 10% of its staff on the Cambridge International Certificate for Teachers programme for Teachers in 2012-13.

The ultimate goal of staff professional development is to improve classroom practice and raise standards of pupil achievement. The Winchester School has a new website dedicated to staff professional development. The site contains information and resources on assessment for Learning, starters, plenaries, differentiation, mind maps, encouraging creativity, objectives and outcomes, multiple intelligences, Bloom’s Taxonomy. There are links to and information about the National Curriculum. It also has numerous resources that are an essential part of the teacher’s toolkit. 

Visit our PD website for more details: www.sites.google.com/site/winchestercpd

Rohan Roberts

Senior Leader, Head of Professional Development

Key Features of Winchester PD Programme

• Middle Leaders cascade training info to their staff using resources given to them.
• Learning facilitators coach staff lead a few training sessions.
• Teachers are given the opportunity to sign up for PDs of their choice.
• Quality Assurance through SLT monitoring and feedback sheets and online surveys.
• Resources are uploaded on Winchester PD website.
• ICT innovation group to meet once a month.
• Middle leaders to compile evidence of impact of PD.
• Certificates of appreciation to be handed out at the end of the year.
• 10% of staff to complete the Cambridge International Certificate for Teachers programme.

Learning Facilitators 

Under the guidance and leadership of the Head of Teaching and Learning, a team of 4 facilitators work with staff on various areas of teaching and classroom practice.

Cambridge International Certificate for Teachers and Trainers

The Cambridge International Certificate for Teachers and Trainers is a practice-based qualification for continuing professional development, relevant to all teaching and learning context and is conducted in school every Thursday from 2:30 - 4:00pm. The programme is led by Rohan Roberts, who been accredited by Cambridge International Examination. 

The Certificate encourages candidates to refresh their approach to teaching and learning. The Certificate is based on a range of relevant professional activities, to match the particular needs of teachers in our school. As it is a short programme (3 months), the Certificate can quickly help improve thinking and practice.

The first cohort of teachers completed the course in December 2012. The second cohort is currently doing the course and will complete it in April 2012.

ICT and Innovation Group

The rationale of this group is to meet bi-month and discuss ICT resources relevant to Education and a school environment and feedback to respective departments and year groups.

Some of the software explored include: MS MouseMichief, Etherpad, FreeMind, Vizu, WordWeb, Prezi, Windows MovieMaker, Animoto, Edmodo, Designing websites, blogs, fonts, podcasts, Promethean, and various other internet teacher tools.

Impact of Training

• Differentiation strategies and catering to multiple intelligences has been embedded in the planning
• Following repeated focus on Bloom’s taxonomy, effective questioning has been added to the planning document
• Active Learning is a key focus of the CICT programme – strategies are being used in class as evidenced by observations.
• More teachers are requesting to be part of the Winchester training programme.
• Modelling of good and outstanding lessons has led to a better awareness of the 3-part lesson structure.
• As a result of Assessment for Learning training and one-on-one meeting with trainers and leaders from GEMS head office staff are now phrasing their lesson objectives and outcomes better and show greater awareness of the difference between the two.
• As a result of the ICT and Innovation group there is greater use of technology in learning

PD Structure

Links:

Cambridge International Certificate for Teachers and Trainers

Click here for details

Winchester PD Calendar

Click here for details

Winchester PD log

Click here to view

PD Newsletters

PD Newsletter - Volume 2 issue 1

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PD Newsletter - Volume 1 issue 2

PD Newsletter - Volume 1 issue 1