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CPD is intrinsic to teaching at Gateways. The school is very much a learning community, for staff no less than pupils. All teachers are encouraged to be pro-active, taking responsibility for their own professional development and producing their own professional portfolios.
Diversity of delivery enables us to cater for the varying needs of staff at different stages of their careers. We do make use of external course providers but much of our CPD now takes place in–house: we have visiting speakers and we also utilise the vast experience within our own staff room.
As well as whole school sessions we also run seminars and workshops which are targeted at specific groups within the staffroom.
Shadowing colleagues is used to support the acquisition of specific management skills. Staff mentoring partnerships have been useful in several ways, especially in developing ICT expertise and extending the application of technology in the classroom. ICT workshops have also proved valuable and we are now eager to investigate the possibilities of
e-learning.
Because we are aware that teachers often struggle to find time to put new ideas into practice we have introduced individual development days which give staff time off timetable to integrate new ideas into their teaching.
We always monitor the effectiveness of our CPD sessions; staff feedback is warmly welcomed as we are firmly committed to continually improving the quality of our CPD.
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