CPDL

Continuing Professional Development and Learning

We place professional learning at the heart of what it means to work at Sawston Village College. We want professional learning to be routine, enjoyable and useful. We deliberately avoid a top-down model of professional development, instead drawing upon and growing expertise across the school.  We take an open-minded but cautious approach to novel ideas and the latest research, taking time to investigate and build understanding, before agreeing on appropriate action; we do not react unthinkingly to trends and the next big thing, but we are open to substantial reform if the evidence and our collective professional judgement show it is warranted. 

Our professional learning programme is developed by our Excellent Teaching Team, a team of colleagues from many departments and stages of career.  The team meets monthly to evaluate our current provision, explore educational research, review our teaching and learning policies and plan our professional learning programme. We explicitly invite constructively critical evaluation of our provision to test and continually refine teaching and learning at the college.  This iterative and inclusive approach is designed to build collective understanding, avoid stagnation and continually test our assumptions.  This group ensures that our professional learning programme is responsive to the needs of individuals, departments and the whole school, is alert to the latest research and sensitive to the particularities and philosophies of different subjects. 

In addition to the whole school professional learning programme, we run specific induction programmes for ECTs and New Staff, which are a blend of induction into Sawston policies and practices alongside an exploration of the relevant philosophies and debates.

We benefit from being a member of Anglian Learning, which provides a comprehensive professional development programme for teaching and non-teaching colleagues, covering core perennial topics such as behaviour management and leadership development alongside training on specific aspects of teaching and learning.  Colleagues are also welcome to access subject-specific training, such as opportunities available through subject associations and other third-party organisations.  

Our intention is that all colleagues will benefit from and any colleague can contribute to the professional learning programme.