We recently hosted the CUREE organisation at the Academy. CUREE is an internationally acknowledged centre of expertise in evidence-based practice in all sectors of education.
At the end of the SKEIN process we received this feedback from them:
We have been delighted to work with Belgrave St Bartholomew's Academy a National Teaching School . As the leader of a large alliance the school was keen to model evaluation of its CPD and open to considering how they could gain the most from the support that they offer others. A Skein visit was used to identify some impressive school strengths. These included :
a strong commitment to and investment in CPD.
the appointment to the SLT of colleagues responsible for Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E). They have implemented a developmental triangulation review process which involves carrying out observations, reviews of pupil work and consultations with children. Feedback and support is given to individual colleagues.This supports the identification of CPD needs and contributes to the evaluation of CPD
numeracy and literacy meetings which are used to let collegues know about new developments and to provide support in experimenting with new practices.
Whilst celebrating its successes Belgrave St Bartholomew's was keen to identify how it could strengthen CPD in ways that will lead to improved pupil progress. By considering practice against evidence-based benchmarks CUREE made a number of recommendations including building on existing coaching to include opportunities for peer support within school and:
wrapping a collaborative professional learning debriefing process for pairs or trios of Belgrave colleagues around visits by teachers from other schools. Belgrave operates an open door policy. An important next step will be considering how it can use a debriefing process to ensure its own teachers benefit as much as visiting teachers and leaders.
We were impressed to work with such a forward thinking teaching school. Belgrave St Bartholowmew's were pleased with the Skein process and report and are now planning ways to take the recommendations forward as well as working with CUREE to evaluate one of their popular courses for teaching assistants.