FEATURE: RECRUITMENT
Mowbray, we strive to foster a positive working environment where all staff members love to work and want to stay long-term. We believe in investing in people and tailoring our employee package to their needs, ensuring they have access to wellbeing resources as well as career development provisions.
• Attract talent from the community We have created and implemented several initiatives to nurture our valued teachers as well as attract new joiners to our team. For instance, we offer work experience and apprenticeships to young people in our communities to help spark a passion for a career in education. This enables aspiring teachers to gain hands-on experience in a dynamic school environment, experience the challenges and rewards of the job and see where in the Trust might be the best fit for them. We also have a strategic partnership with a local ITT provider, allowing us to support trainee teachers by offering a range of experiences across our schools. Following their training, these individuals often join our team full-time and enjoy the wonderful benefits of our career development programmes. This includes bespoke career path planning. For this, we initiate regular check-ins with our staff about their aspirations for their careers, any issues they might be having and where they are looking to develop. Then, together, we work to identify a clear path to achieve their goals, followed up with appropriate actions such as enrolling in courses to gain qualifications, like National Professional Qualifications.
• Ensure training and development at every step
Empowering staff with high-quality training and professional development throughout their career is extremely important. We ensure that our Early Career Teachers (ECT) have the best support through Ambition Institute’s Early Career Framework (ECF). This ensures they develop key skills and knowledge that will stand them in good stead in the classroom and enable them to support our pupils to achieve the best possible outcomes. We have also found that engaging with the ECF is a valuable experience for mentors, developing their coaching skills and revisiting
crucial elements of high-quality teaching and learning. In addition to the ECF, we also have half-termly ECT networks, bringing together both primary and secondary ECTs to share experiences. Another impactful initiative is our ongoing subscription to the National College. This offers training modules on various subjects to all staff. They can access this resource as and when they please to best suit their tailored career development path. Additionally, we offer our bespoke Aspiring Leaders programme, designed to help develop leadership skills for individuals who wish to take on senior roles in the future. This has brought together teaching and non- teaching staff to develop their understanding of leadership styles, high-performing teams and ethical leadership.
We also offer a secondment programme which allows staff to gain experience in other positions across the Trust which may not be possible within their own school. This provides great learning experiences and sharing of best practice for the staff member and the school they have temporarily joined.
We encourage staff at all levels to support each other and have found that from our collaborative culture, informal mentoring opportunities have emerged. We have new Headteachers being supported by a more experienced leader and subject leaders being supported by Headteachers for example. As with the secondment
programme, this allows knowledge and expertise to be shared between schools across the Trust.
• Trust-wide networks for best practice Our Trust-wide networks for sharing best practice and current research have sparked the most impactful change at Mowbray. These networks are formed by staff across the Trust and provide forums for colleagues to discuss ideas, advice and developments, each relating to specific themes. They span curriculum-specific groups, EYFS, SEND provision, attendance, safeguarding, senior leadership and pastoral care.
One of the most successful networks has been our primary maths teaching and learning group, which has seen a clear measured improvement in pupils’ outcomes and engagement following the use of lesson studies to share and demonstrate high-quality maths teaching. Our English and reading network is equally effective in developing teaching and this year has seen subject leads collaborating to launch a “year of reading” initiative for our communities. The most important outcome of all our networks is the sense of being part of a supportive team which encourages each other through challenges including exam periods and inspections. Overall, the impacts of these initiatives have been overwhelmingly positive. Our Trust-wide response has helped to carve out clear and consistent pathways for teachers’ professional and personal development, creating a happier, more stable and more confident workforce. We work proactively to ensure our staff have the best development opportunities so they feel equipped to thrive in their work. Happy teachers lend to better school environments which then translates to benefits for pupils. Going forward, we hope to boost our development initiatives even further by implementing more wellbeing checkpoints and feedback-gathering tools, to identify further areas for improvement. As a Trust, we rely on the incredible talent and passion of our staff to create an outstanding teaching and learning environment. One of the most important lessons during the process of improving our teacher talent framework is the value of collaboration. The many skills and talents of our teachers and wider staff shine bright when they are well-supported and have the chance to collaborate. The best wins we have experienced are thanks to our dynamic and incredible team members who pull together to progress the Trust mission.
March 2023
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