The White Horse Federation is committed to supporting the development of all staff – whatever the stage of their career and whatever role they work in. As part of the Trust, all staff have access to a wide network of colleagues from other schools and departments, and The White Horse Federation promotes collaboration through our project groups, training courses, and CPD schemes.
We believe strongly in research-based development for all of our staff, and project groups provide opportunities for colleagues to come together and share their research to a wider audience of peers and senior leaders. Via these network groups, staff have the chance to work on action research projects to investigate a line of enquiry more fully. These tend to be smaller groups who carry out inter-sessional tasks as part of the research before feeding back to other members across the Trust.
Within each subject area there are well established network groups to exemplify and develop the pedagogy within that subject area and support one another in a host of ways. Beyond subject specific groups, key leaders within schools have similar networks – Pupil Premium Leads, Assistant Principals and SENDCos.
As well as supporting the progression of a subject through a school, we have mechanisms to support its development across a year group ,and so timetabled across the year are opportunities for year group colleagues to meet and moderate work within their own year group.
From all of these groups, themes relevant to schools across the Trust are isolated and project groups set up on an annual basis to drive practice forward. These project groups meet termly, often facilitated by a consultant, in order to investigate and report back findings to senior leadership within schools.
A good start to a career in teaching is key. Each school has its own NQT programme pertinent to its setting, but this is underpinned by the support of an external consultant who has worked with the Trust for over five years.
NQTs are thus provided with professional development that explores principles of highly effective teaching and learning whilst offering a range of practical ideas and strategies for use in the classroom. The same consultant provides a spine of career development within the Trust by also working with those new to senior leadership, those aspiring to headship, and those new to headship. Each group has bespoke input over the course of the year with regular coaching sessions in between.
As part of our learning and development provision, The White Horse Federation has a dedicated learning management system available to all members of staff. With access to an extensive range of digital courses, employees are able to pick and choose what areas of training they would like to invest in and complete them online at a pace that suits their needs.
As an NQT I have really valued Andy's training sessions. They have given me some great tools to use in my practice and some serious food for thought about what type of teacher I am and inspire to be.
The support I have received from the whole team here at Tregoze has been second to none. Being a smaller school, I am lucky enough to have received support from all members of the team and have been able to tap into their invaluable knowledge and experience.
My training on Andy Hind's programme has facilitated a connection with other like-minded NQTs and has provided some exceptional guidance and advice from a real expert in the field.
I have absolutely loved doing my NQT year at Moredon and for me, I can't think of a better place that I could have started my teaching career. The support that I have had from my NQT mentor, head teacher and all staff has been brilliant, and I couldn't have hoped for more. I have been attending fortnightly NQT sessions online with Bill German and I've also had a whole school English CPD opportunity.
Should you require any further information from our HR Learning and Development Lead regarding any of the programmes we run, apprenticeships or anything to do with CPD, please enquire by filling in the following form.