St Joan's: Succession planning in leading professional learning

last updated:28 Oct 2009

St Joan of Arc Catholic School (St Joan’s) is a comprehensive school in Rickmansworth, Herts. The school has taken a personalised approach to CPD and professional learning (PL) and has created staff workshops, opportunities for ‘reflection time’ and a bespoke MA course.

School vision
The school has a strong belief that effective PL can lead to school improvement and increase staff morale and confidence. This has led to some radical developments.

Transforming professional learning
Factors which have helped transform PL in St Joan of Arc include the following.

• The identification of key stakeholders in the school who were eager to move forward their own practice and work with others, helping to break through the possible attitude of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
• Willingness of all staff to support the learning of others and work in a collegiate fashion.
• Creating the time and space for development and reflection.
• Succession planning in CPD and professional learning.
• Creating a bespoke Masters programme for staff in the school, delivered on site.
• Having someone who has knowledge of the requirements and performance indicators of training schools for reference.

These performance indicators include:

• effective Initial Teacher Education (ITE) provision  across a variety of departments
• in-house professional development opportunities offered
• a certain percentage of teachers in the school involved in coaching and mentoring; and
• a certain percentage of teachers in the school involved in action research.

St Joan’s wants its PL programme to be recognised both internally and externally, and acknowledged as emergent best practice in the area. It also offers staff the opportunity to participate in the Teacher Learning Academy.

Read on to find out more about the school’s multi-faceted approach.