Teaching and Learning

Supporting New Middle Leaders

Any member of staff taking on a middle leadership role will receive support, guidance and, perhaps most importantly, a sounding board for ideas. New Heads of Department are allocated an experienced mentor.
 

Aspiring Middle and Senior Leaders

We are proud that so many of our staff have gone on to become middle and senior leaders within the school and beyond. As well as sessions focusing on how to prepare for a middle leadership interview, we also offer a programme for aspiring senior leaders, Developing a Whole School Mindset, involving problem solving exercises that mirror the challenges faced by school leadership teams.
 
Parents and pupils rightly expect consistently outstanding teaching at Wilson’s and so continuing professional development (Professional Learning) is at the heart of our school calendar and routines for teachers. Teachers receive regular feedback on their teaching, via developmental lesson observations and conversations about pupils’ work. There are also structured opportunities for teachers to review their own practice.
 
We strive to develop a culture of discussion and debate about teaching, presenting teachers with difficult questions in Professional Learning sessions and challenging dialogues when feeding back on lesson observations! We take a highly personalised approach to match each teacher’s expertise and enthusiasm with suitable training, and the Professional Learning programme continues to respond to the views and priorities of staff as expressed in annual whole-staff review meetings. Evaluating the impact of professional development and pedagogical approaches is core to our approach and all teachers are given an insight into high quality classroom research methodology.
 
We are always delighted to answer any questions about our approach to Professional Learning.