At Sydney Russell we work together and support each other to unlock the potential of every child, challenge expectations and level the playing field to activate social mobility.
Our aims can be summed up in three words: Currency, Character and Culture. We want our young people to leave us with the qualifications that they need to succeed in later life. We want them to flourish as lifelong learners and through a range of enrichment opportunities be inspired and grow in confidence to achieve their aspirations. These three words sum up the shared values that underpin every decision made and every policy implemented.
At the heart of our success lies the skills and talents of our staff and their enthusiasm for their craft. At Sydney Russell we look to recruit and retain the very best staff who live our ethos each day. Our professional development programme for staff is paramount to our success and enables us to achieve a sustainable model of excellence. Despite the difficult financial climate we continue to invest in teacher development to ensure teaching is more than ‘getting the work done’. At Sydney Russell we ensure all staff have a supportive line manager and are valued and upskilled through effective CPDL.
Our CPDL model centres around the TLC model
To develop our staff into highly reflective, ambitious, and innovative practitioners with a strong pedagogical expertise, who create significant student impact and inspire other staff to improve.
To develop coaches who value, motivate, and empower each other to engage in professional learning, leading to improved student attitudes and outcomes
To develop all leaders at SRS to create a clear vision for the future and havethe strategic thinking to effectively challenge and support others to achieveour goals and outcomes.
Weekly meetings with middle leaders are carefully planned to ensure staff are guided and supported with the development of whole school priorities. Further to this, we deliberately develop our leaders through coaching training, leadership conferences and other CPDL opportunities.
All subjects have weekly CPDL during the school day for one hour, to work on departmental priorities. This is sequenced and planned by curriculum leads to ensure there is time for standardisation and moderation and also subject priorities.
Personal Professional Development and Learning takes place after school on Thursday’s. Staff engage with workshops, coaching or NPQs, to continue to enhance their practice.
There are 9 twilights per year which focus on whole school priorities, from Literacy to teacher feedback. Twilights are an opportunity to learn from research and from each other to ensure our provision is of the highest quality for our young people.
Through professional development we work hard to grow and develop people as leaders of learning. As an OLEVI Designated Centre of Excellence, we offer an array of OLEVI Programmes to continue to work with and support the development of staff. All middle leaders are trained to be Level 4 coaches to enable them to grow others around the school. Effective leadership at all levels has been key to our development. We believe in a model of distributed leadership and empowering all staff to lead within their areas and beyond. We are not afraid to be bold, take risks and make changes. We constantly evaluate what we do to make sure we do it even better next time.
Olevi
Outstanding Leadership in Education
View the full Learning and Teaching Strategy here
