Our Development Programmes - Staff
On this page you'll find an overview of the personal and professional development opportunities available to staff at Harris Academy Rainham.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact Hannah Schapira h.schapira@harrisrainham.org.uk
The Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher programme
The Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher programme is a fantastic professional development programme for parents on leave. Their primary aim is to inspire, empower and connect teachers through CPT and professional coaching opportunities whilst on parental leave.
Completing The MTPT Project Accreditation is an empowering experience for teachers choosing to use the period of parental leave as an opportunity to complete self-directed CPD. Teachers involved in our accreditation have enjoyed the following benefits:
- Improved wellbeing on parental leave and when back at work
- Increased sense of motivation to return to work and a re-engagement with their subject and leadership responsibilities
- A supportive community and professional network
- Career redirection, promotions, sideways moves and new roles in different schools
- Preparation for changes to the curriculum, school policies or new job roles
- Increased confidence and sense of professional worth
The two-module MTPT Project Accreditation is underpinned by three coaching sessions per module and empowers teachers on parental leave to document and reflect on their CPD in a more structured manner. The MTPT Project’s ‘no guilt, no pressure’ policy ensures that our accreditation is both motivating and flexible, designed to work around the demands of teachers’ new families.
This is how the MTPT programme describes itself:
"We believe that parents are entitled to make decisions that support their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families. Wellbeing means different things for different people: for some, this means maintaining a sense of that “teacher” identity during the “break” of parental leave."
"We think creatively about the type of activities that have a positive impact on our students and can therefore be considered effective professional learning, and we love exploring the simplicity or problem-solving challenge of enjoying these with babies and toddlers."
The Harris Diploma in Teaching and Leadership
The Harris Diploma in Teaching and Leadership (HDTL) is an opportunity to bring high quality leadership development, training and resources to new and relatively new education leaders. It is for anyone with leadership responsibility who hasn’t previously undertaken formal leadership development.
HDTL is a 12-15 month Level 3 apprenticeship programme based on the Team Leader/Supervisor Standard ST0384. It is tailored to fit the needs of leadership within schools, delivered in partnership with The Opportunity Group.
Subject-specific development
Each subject leader develops their own staff within their department, following these guiding principles.
- Subject leaders are commissioned to lead and be responsible for the development of subject expertise of staff in their subject specialist areas.
- Teacher development must include expanding expertise in the subject and supporting effective pedagogy. Subject leaders are expected to grow this learning environment and hunger for development within their departments.
- Subject leaders must develop relationships with external expert organisations relevant to their field. This is crucial to ensuring the continuous development of teachers' expertise within the department.
- Subject leaders should ensure teacher practice is grounded in a cyclic performance of action, evaluation and reflection.
- Subject leaders should ensure the exposure to research-informed practice underpins pedagogical development in departments.
Teachers have their own guiding principles that govern their development.
- Domain-specific knowledge and expertise is the necessary foundation for teacher improvement.
- Teacher exposure and engagement with informed practice and pedagogy is key to developing experts.
- Teachers must understand the science of learning and the components that make up this body of pedagogical knowledge.
- Teachers should be familiar with researched-informed practice considering their use and appropriateness for their area of expertise.
- Teachers are expected to foster and provide a challenging atmosphere and environment for themselves and our students.
Theory Applied Practice (TAP) workshops
As teachers, we should be continually updating our knowledge to ensure our students acquire knowledge. We provide training focused on three domains:
- Cognitive knowledge
- Subject knowledge
- Pedagogical knowledge.
We provide training in the form of workshops, departmental discussions and reading and expect that all teachers have secure knowledge on the following evidence-based research practices within cognitive science:
- The science of learning
- The cognitive load theory
- Dual coding
- Practice: retrieval practice; spaced practice; interleaving; elaboration
Staff should also ensure their delivery of subject content is challenging and of high quality by having excellent knowledge of:
- The most important substantive and disciplinary knowledge in their domain
- The misconceptions that students may have and how to challenge them
- Good pedagogy and understanding of classroom delivery
- The differences in learning and the retention of knowledge between novices and experts
Our research-based workshops are linked to supportive texts and current literature. Click HERE to see an example of our workshops.
We also offer a reading pack which supports the development of our TAP workshops. We expect all teacher to actively engage with the literature and participate in departmental discussions about its implications for the classroom.
‘Teachers with greater content knowledge have higher levels of pedagogical content knowledge, which itself leads to great attention to cognitive activation in their teaching’. Baumert (2010)
The Good to Great Programme
This programme is intended for consistently good teachers who have the potential and capacity to develop into expert teachers and leaders beyond the classroom.
The programme will examine the latest evidence-based research about effective learning and how this can be used to inform classroom practice. Teachers on this programme will have the opportunity to engage with current literature, carry out a academy-focused project and deliver training. It will also look at how leaders in the classroom can influence the quality of teaching and learning across the academy by conducting learning walks, identifying areas of development and providing radically candid and constructive feedback to teachers at all levels.
Newly qualified teachers and trainee teachers
Our in-house NQT training is both rigorous and challenging while being incredibly supportive. At Rainham our unspoken motto is that people come first and as one of our NQTs you will feel this more than you could possibly imagine.
Every Wednesday morning we run training to equip and empower our trainees to become better practitioners. The training is always delivered by one of our school leaders to ensure you receive the best information, technique to develop and improve your practice.
We recognise that the training year are often tumultuous and bring up lots of personal and professional challenges. At Rainham we totally understand this and are dedicated to not just supporting you through the professional challenges but also any personal challenges you may face on your journey to becoming a better teacher.
Here we understand that learning is not just a process to engage in but rather one that engages all aspect of a person. Our training aims to support, empower and equip you to comfortably handle all the opportunities you will have in those first two years.
Our NQTs will benefit from:
- Weekly training and support to improve their practice
- Subject-specific planning day with the Federation trainers or with school leaders
- A strong drive to equip trainees on improving their subject expertise and understanding of curriculum
- Weekly mentoring from their line manager
- Opportunities to access and work with school leaders
- Two Federation conferences a year focusing on developing subject knowledge and pedagogy
Preparing for middle/senior leadership (in-house)
We firmly believe in the idea of supporting leaders to keep getting better. At Rainham our leaders work incredibly hard to lead, model and showcase the best way to work and lead - we constantly aim to care about the people and care about the work.
The heart of our leadership training is to support staff in developing and improving all aspects of their professional practice and actively be conscientious in regards to how we lead others around the academy. At Rainham leaders lead by serving. This is key to our leadership philosophy and is something we are incredibly proud to attribute to our academy.
Our in-house leadership programme consist of theoretical based training coupled with the necessary opportunities to practise these in an around the academy. We don’t just train staff about leadership but we expect them to do it. We are proud of our strong leadership ethos and programme aimed at preparing staff for the next stage on their leadership journey, whether that is as a middle leader or senior leader. Our in-house training prepares leaders at both levels for what is next.
Like all of our training at Rainham we have built our leadership curriculum around key leadership values and books that expound these values, some of these books include:
- Radical Candor by Kim Scott
- Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet
- The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
- More Human by Steve Hilton
National Professional Qualifications (middle leader/senior leader/headship)
The National Professional Qualifications (NPQ) are a group of three courses for staff in education settings at all levels who want to develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead successfully.
These NPQ courses offer participants the opportunity to:
- Gain the knowledge, skills and leadership behaviours they need to succeed
- Move ahead in their careers, through gaining a DfE-recognised qualification in leadership.
All three courses are designed by education practitioners and educational psychologists to provide current, innovative and practice-focused training that will give school leaders the insight and tools they need to become highly effective leaders. Real Training are the acknowledged experts in masters-level online professional development.
The NPQML (middle leader) is a qualification that provides national recognition of your leadership development and professional achievement as a middle leader. This programme is carefully designed to develop the leadership potential of aspiring middle leaders from all schools and phases. The programme supports participants to identify personal areas for development, understand the typical responsibilities and challenges for middle leaders supporting them to develop techniques to lead others and drive school improvement effectively.
The NPQSL (senior leader) is a dynamic development programme for experienced middle leaders potentially one year away from senior leadership and newly appointed senior leaders with whole school responsibilities. This programme is designed to support participants to improve existing knowledge, skills and experience and develop capacity to work efficiently across an organisation.
The National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) is the first-choice qualification for anyone aspiring to become a Headteacher or Principal. The Aspiring Leaders approach to the programme prepares you to lead a school confidently and effectively, in a system where Schools and Academies are fully responsible for self-improvement and delivering high-quality outcomes for students. This programmes offers a unique opportunity to learn from some of the best school leaders in the country and observe what makes different schools ‘outstanding’. The programme is very practical and all face-to face training sessions are facilitated by outstanding school leaders in their own schools and academies.
