King Edward VI Handsworth Wood Girls’ Academy is committed to providing high quality continuous professional development for all colleagues, both teaching and support staff, in order that our students achieve educational excellence and can fulfil personal potential. 

The academy has a weekly two-hour CPD session for all staff on Wednesday afternoons. This provides the flexibility and regularity to deliver high quality CPD in order to meet the needs of the curriculum, the staff and the students. We also have Professional Learning Communities every Monday after school for all teachers to work collaboratively on educational theories, practice and development.

Aims:

• To create a learning culture for students, teaching and support staff.
• To create opportunities for all staff to develop their skills, knowledge and expertise.
• To provide opportunities for staff to take on new roles in the academy and to ensure that these are fully supported by effective CPD.
• To create the opportunity for all staff to develop their CPD through reflective practice and ongoing exposure to education research.
• To ensure that good practice is shared both within and outside the academy.
• To give staff access to professional and academic qualifications.
• To provide opportunities for staff to undertake research projects and secondments within the academy and beyond to enhance the learning experiences of our students.
• To ensure ITT and ECT teachers are provided with high quality support, training and personalised provision.

CPD:

• Weekly two-hour CPD
• Weekly Professional Learning Community sessions
• Robust Induction Programme
• King Edward VI senior and middle leadership programmes
• NPQs with both the Academy Trust and Ambition Institute
• Further study and MA opportunities
• National Teacher Accreditation (NTA) for ECTs
• Collaborative and joint training days with other Trust schools
• Educational research opportunities
• Personalised CPD

Chartered College of Teaching Membership

As part of King Edward VI Handsworth Wood Girls’ Academy CPD offer and entitlement, all teachers are offered annual membership to the Chartered College of Teaching. The Chartered College of Teaching is the professional body for teachers. Their vision is to celebrate, support and connect teachers to take pride in their profession and provide the best possible education for children and young people. They are dedicated to bridging the gap between practice and research and equipping teachers from the second they enter the classroom with the knowledge and confidence to make the best decisions for their pupils. Through Chartered College of Teaching membership, teachers have access to a wealth of research, resources and insight to enable excellent teaching. 

Membership provides colleagues with:

• Research Engagement Toolkits
• CPD resources on a members-only site MyCollege
• Impact, a peer-reviewed journal
• CPD packs – everything teacher’s need to deliver professional development sessions and develop practice
• Compact guides, research reviews and research in a nutshell
• Access to the world’s largest education and research database and summaries of every policy and research document released
• Early career area on the members-only website, MyCollege
• Exclusive invites to events, networks and webinars across the country

Once a member of The Chartered College of Teaching colleagues have the recognition as a professional, by being awarded the letters MCCT.

Optimus

All colleagues at the Academy have access to a wealth of resources and individualised CPD packages with Optimus. Optimus provides online CPD for the whole school community and personalised programmes of study that colleagues can assign themselves to. All CPD can be tracked via My CPD Tracker, offering a portfolio of professional development. As well as a termly Insight magazine, there are more than 100 expert led webinars that can be accessed at times that suit colleagues. Optimus also supports leaders at all levels with articles, toolkits, year planners, audits and general guidance, to support and limit workload.