Bushey Meads School is outward facing and staff are constantly looking for opportunities to make those 1% improvements. In addition to attending external sessions, we believe that the sharing of best practice from within is equally as effective in helping to raise standards.
Our open door culture makes it easy for staff to enter classrooms in search of new ideas and the structure of our staff development sessions allow staff to put ideas into practice as well as being introduced to new concepts.
Staff training relates each year on moving the school forward in terms of its vision and annual focus. Each member of the Teaching and Learning Team oversees one of the six development strands. (Fabulous Foundations; Making Progress Stick; Practical Engagement in the Classroom; Adaptive, Sensitive and Collaborative Teaching; Engaging With Technology and Sequencing for Success).
We host Staff Conferences throughout the academic year including Hosting Guest Practitioners.
The three key elements of each 90min development sessions are:
- Introducing key concepts to the staff body and asking them to participate interactively in the main hall for 25min.
- The setting of related tasks which allow staff to start embedding the key messages in their faculty areas (as well in cross subject professional learning groups) for 60min.
- Re-convening in the main hall to participate in a ‘bring and brag’ activity where each faculty / professional learning group have 30 seconds to explain what they have been working on for the final 5min.
Staff also complete evaluation forms on staff development and state their specific training needs. Sign-up surgery sessions are then devised on this basis and are offered at regular intervals throughout the year to create a personalised and bespoke programme for each member of staff.
Impact of Staff Development
For the past three years, the Staff Development Programme has changed each academic year depending on current pedagogical research, specific whole school trends / needs and the feedback obtained from staff.
With relation to the impact this had on teaching and learning, at the start of the 2016-2017 academic year, 32.4% of teaching was classified as outstanding and 94.2% good and outstanding. At the end of the 2020-2021 year, 51.4% of teaching was outstanding and 98.5% good and outstanding.
At the end of the 2017-2018 academic year, 50% of teaching was classified as outstanding and 98.5% good and outstanding. With our ‘no stone un-turned’ philosophy, we hope that these figures will continue to rise year on year.
