The Professional Development of staff in schools is pivotal to ensure that the children and young people in their care get the best possible education by having access to a curriculum and approach that prepares them for life. It is fascinating to think that in our schools, we are preparing our children for careers and jobs that don’t necessarily exist yet. Therefore, we need to be mindful that although we may currently have a curriculum in place with defined knowledge and skills, our eyes have to stay on what is coming next down the line and what approaches we might need to build into our curriculum to ensure our children can succeed in an ever evolving society.
A schools curriculum is brought to life by the teachers, teaching assistants and leaders who are invested in providing their children with a curriculum that fits their context, which involves ensuring that they have considered:
- the local curriculum
- the hidden curriculum
- the subject disciplines
Regular and well planned out Professional Development is the key to ensuring that staff in schools are both well prepared and enabled to be reflective of their practice. Creating a common language for Teaching and Learning grounded in evidence based research is crucial to this, but in addition, it is crucial to engage in professional dialogue beyond our own school or group of schools to review the ever changing educational landscape.
At BEST we are continually listening to our partners to shape the Professional Development offer that we provide and through our range of consultants and associates, we provide training and consultancy where requested to meet the needs of an individual school or group of schools. Through providing both online and in person sessions, BEST ensures that Professional Development is accessible and manageable, whilst being based on development across the curriculum, in EYFS and core subjects such as maths and English.
“If we create a culture where every teacher believes they need to improve, not because they are not good enough but because they can be even better, there is no limit to what we can achieve.”
Dylan William
