The impact of professional learning on teaching and learning, curriculum development, and leadership
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Information about the school
Lewis Girls’ School is a comprehensive English-medium 11-18 school, maintained by Caerphilly County Borough Council. It serves the immediate area of Ystrad Mynach, as well as surrounding areas as far as Llanbradach.
There are 678 students on roll, including those in the sixth form. Nearly all students speak English as their first language. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is approximately 21% on average over the past three years, which is similar to the national average. The percentage of pupils with additional learning needs is 12%.
The senior leadership team consists of the headteacher, deputy headteacher, and three assistant headteachers. The headteacher, deputy headteacher and one of the assistant headteachers took up acting posts in January 2020 and were appointed to substantive roles in September 2022.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
Investment in high quality, bespoke professional learning has been established within the school over a period of time, enabling continuous improvement in the quality of teaching and learning. Engagement with professional learning has also developed a whole school culture of collaboration and innovation that is valued by leaders, teachers and teaching assistants. The school’s vision is underpinned by high expectations in the core purpose of teaching and learning and the investment in professional development supports the school in realising this vision.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
Teachers and teaching assistants choose from a ‘menu’ of professional learning sessions designed to impact on learners and learning. Five of the sessions are mandated and teachers evaluate the quality and usefulness of the sessions they undertake. Each session is carefully planned to have a specific focus on an aspect of classroom activity or practice that is identified as particularly effective. For example, ‘Engaging learners with learning’ and ‘Effective development of reading skills’ are sessions based on practical approaches that have proved to be successful and can be readily applied by teachers across the curriculum. Successful practice is identified through the range of quality assurance and evaluation activities, but mostly through scrutiny of pupils’ work and dialogue with student fora. These fora are monthly and have a different focus each month. A group of pupils meet with the headteacher and the deputy headteacher who use a variety of structured and open questions to gauge pupils’ views on aspects of learning and progress. Lesson observations, which are integral to the school’s quality assurance processes, also serve the purpose of providing all teachers with the opportunity to observe the practice of their colleagues and their reflections on their experiences inform the content of the professional learning menu. Sessions are peer led, often have a practical element and focus on sharing current and relevant practice, including the trialling of approaches by teachers. This enables people to tailor their professional development based on their own reflections and engage in purposeful collaboration and enquiry-based research. It also retains the school’s continuous focus on its core purpose of teaching and learning.
Staff responded well to the opportunity to collaborate, innovate and share practice in this way, with less emphasis or formal input from school leaders and more peer- to-peer working. Everyone is expected to contribute to professional learning, including student teachers and teaching assistants so the school can benefit from wider expertise, skills and experiences. A model of interdependent leadership emerged from the approach to professional learning and has evolved to become ‘the way we work’. It applies itself particularly well to aspects of school development such as the design of the school’s approach to the Curriculum for Wales.
The model also applied itself well to distance learning during the pandemic, when teachers engaging in online learning provided peer-to-peer support for digital skills and the development of digital competency. The school was well prepared for the transition to online learning. All pupils were equipped with a laptop computer and were competent in using the school’s preferred platform for learning. Teachers and teaching assistants were also trained to deliver online lessons. Safeguarding for online learning had been delivered by the headteacher prior to the school closure so that live lessons could be provided. However, the range of digital ability and the level of confidence among teachers varied considerably and it was the culture of professional learning that had become so integral to the way people worked across the school that proved invaluable at this time. Teachers were accustomed to sharing and collaborating and online sessions informally termed, ‘Did You Know.. .’ and ‘Do You Know How To….’ were quickly established, effectively contributing to the peer- to- peer support system in the delivery of distance and blended learning. This enabled staff to continue to professionally develop, collaborate with colleagues and still drive school improvement. There was a large impact on teachers’ digital skills and their ability to use these to help pupils learn.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
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.