The level of collaboration and shared responsibility for the school’s work impacted significantly on staff’s understanding of how to.create a curriculum that engages, inspires and motivates all learners. Habits developed through the engagement in professional learning cultivated a model of healthy accountability. The distribution of leadership was clearly favoured by teachers over the more traditional formal model of hierarchical leadership that often typifies schools. Teachers understood and embraced their collective responsibility and their entitlement to contribute to the design and development of the curriculum. As such, a vast range of skills and expertise inform curriculum provision and pupils’ enthusiasm for learning impacted on progress, attitudes to learning, skills and social development. Teachers’ creativity was a significant factor in curriculum innovation. The mindset of collective responsibility also supported the school’s vision of an authentic learning organisation, where collaboration and innovation are key to continuous improvement and the capacity for growth, leadership and sustainability extends across the school and is accessed by all.
In 2021 the school reviewed its approach to Performance Management based on the impact of professional development on the quality of teaching and learning. Teachers now have one classroom- based inquiry focus that is a point of ongoing discussion and reflection throughout the year, in place of three traditional ‘targets’ that are revisited once during the year. Staff will share their work, including the trial and error aspects that benefit teachers’ learning. At the end of the cycle, a number of high quality evidence-based approaches that best impact on learners and learning will be shared. This revised approach to Performance Management aligns to the new National Professional Learning Entitlement (NPLE), where staff are clear that, as well as an expectation for professional learning, they also have an entitlement to a professional learning journey, and a programme of approaches and opportunities for reflection, enquiry and collaboration.
Professional learning has evolved from a traditional leadership-led approach, usually delivered by senior staff and undertaken after school at specific times dictated by the school calendar and delivered through face-to-face sessions. Instead, flexibility is key to sustaining the culture of professional learning and collaboration. A menu of online sessions prepared and delivered by teachers for teachers continues to be the preferred practice for professional learning. Staff can now choose to access the sessions live from home or access recordings to suit their preferred way of working. This has become a professional learning library and is regularly revisited by teachers during the year to support classroom based inquiry and research, innovation and exploration of aspects of teaching and learning. Although the headteacher still identifies five mandatory sessions a year as directed time activities, all teachers choose to attend many more of the sessions provided and from a menu of almost thirty sessions on the menu, nearly all staff access all sessions. Current evaluation of professional learning sessions show 56% are rated as excellent and 44% are rated good. Comments and feedback from teachers are used for forward planning.
Professional learning at Lewis Girls’ is a strength, supporting continuous improvement in the quality of teaching and learning, strong curriculum development and the modelling and growth of leadership. There is a culture of partnership, collaboration, openness and trust, that recognises strengths and uses expertise to share within and beyond the school. It is a learning organisation with a culture of collective and individual responsibility for personal development and continuous professional learning. This culture increasingly impacts on the school’s work. For example, the design and implementation of an exciting curriculum that offers relevant learning experiences to pupils.
Collaborative practice has led to innovative design that exploits subject disciplines and allows knowledge, skills and understanding to be transferred within and across Areas of Learning Experiences. This has led to high pupil engagement and an enjoyment in learning. Sharing classroom practice is integral to the school’s work and has impacted on the development of pupils’ reading, writing and creative skills across the curriculum. Peer- to-peer support has been crucial to developing digitally skilled staff, confident in providing pupils with opportunities to use a range of software applications across all areas of the curriculum. The culture of collaboration has given the school’s workforce the confidence and capacity to extend beyond the school and teachers and in particular middle leaders engage in a wide range of external partnership work to improve and share their practice. The school is a regional associate Professional Lead school and also a Learning Network School, leading in STEM, International Languages and Wellbeing. This supports the growth of leadership and further enhances the school’s capacity for improvement.
