CAT Internal CPD

The courses are internal course led by our own staff. They focus on four main areas;

1) Strategic Quality Management or SQM led by Dr Bill Snaith. 

Strategic Quality Management - SQM

Strategic Quality Management (SQM) is a step-by-step methodology to create a strategic plan. SQM is flexible, self-checking, self-moderating, risk-aware, and iterative. SQM ensures an engaging and practical coherent plan, acknowledging the inherent risks in achieving it and avoiding the vagueness and emptiness of ‘strategic language’. With SQM, everyone can contribute to building the plan and so own it.

Structure and language are important in SQM to create clarity and an easy shared understanding. The table below highlights where structure and language are key. SQM builds a complete coherent Strategy.

2) Learning Without Limits or LWL led by Andrea Curran. 

Cheshire Academies Trust and Cheshire Leadership and Teaching Alliance provides a sustained and carefully designed professional development programme underpinned by some of the best international ideas, research and evidence from around the world. This includes from Cambridge University, Learning without Limits research team, Harvard University with Expeditionary Learning, and the research of Todd Rose, and Standford University with ideas and evidence from Professor Carol Dweck, Professor Jo Boaler and the Visible Teaching research by Professor John Hattie.

This learning network brings curriculum leaders together, with a collegiate desire to explore what might be possible when a whole school staff, acting together, commits themselves to creating an environment free from limiting beliefs about children - and themselves as expert teachers and educators.

The sessions are called ‘close to practice’ units as all research based ideas can be applied to real classrooms with real teachers/educators.

The vision of the Learning without Limits programme is that we can:

• Develop expert teaching with energy focussed on planning high quality learning based on what great teachers do, including child engaged assessment model, deeper instruction and curriculum design.
• Focus on classroom culture that offers challenge within lessons so that children develop the dispositions to work at the very limit of their current understanding;
• Introduce a suite of Protocols, rituals and checks for understanding that elevates all teaching and supports them as dynamic assessors;
• Provide feedback about learning that is kind, specific and helpful that builds motivation to approach new learning in a very powerful way;
• Harnesses the ‘peer effect’ so that an ethic of everybody together is established and embedded;
• Introduces an expanded notion of achievement that includes, mastery of knowledge and skills, producing high quality work, as well as character;
• Understand the psychology of change so that school leaders encourage the growth of inventiveness and openness to new ideas;
• Look beyond the limits of our own localities to incorporate current international research into pedagogy;
• Engage with others’ in a collaborative project to explore and develop a deeper understanding of what human educability means – and improve schools.

Close to Practice units

The learning network community will meet for six sessions per year with Head teachers and ‘curriculum leads’. The sessions will offer ‘close to practice’ sessions which enables the Head teacher and school designer to spend time together in the context of CPD and collaborating with others’. All resources to enable network participants to share the sessions in their own school will be provided – this enables school leaders to share the sessions at a time and sequence to suit own schools’ needs.

3) Next Generation and Middle Leadership Training Programmes led by Steve Ellis and Kate Doyle

Cheshire Academies Trust's 'Next Gen' and 'Middle Leadership' training programmes are meticulously designed to build capacity and ensure effective succession planning. These programmes are a strategic initiative to identify and develop the potential leaders within the Trust, ensuring a robust pipeline of skilled professionals ready to step into leadership roles as they arise.

The next generation leadership programme is tailored to early-career educators who demonstrate a potential for leadership and ultimately Headship. It provides them with the foundational skills necessary for effective leadership and management, preparing them for future responsibilities.

The middle leadership training, on the other hand, is aimed at current leaders within the Trust who are looking to refine their skills and advance their leadership journey. This programme delves deeper into the complexities of educational leadership, focusing on strategic planning, team management, and advanced pedagogical techniques.

Both programmes emphasise collaborative learning and peer support, fostering a culture of collective professional growth. Participants engage in hands-on projects and case studies, benefiting from the expertise of seasoned leaders and external experts.

By investing in these training programmes, Cheshire Academies Trust ensures that its schools are led by highly capable leaders who are not only equipped to address the challenges of today’s educational landscape but also to shape the direction of the Trust's future.

4) MITA Project led by Andrea Curran

The Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants (MITA) project is an evidence-based initiative designed to enhance the effectiveness of teaching assistants in the classroom. It focuses on strategic deployment, preparedness, and practice to ensure TAs contribute meaningfully to pupils' learning and independence. The project offers school leaders and teachers practical guidance and training to optimise TA support, promoting a collaborative approach to teaching and learning that maximises the positive outcomes for students. For a detailed overview, please visit the MITA website.

5) EYFS Reggio INspired Practice led by Andrea Curran

EYFS Reggio Inspired Practice:Enabling Environments

The Pre-schools in the Northern Italian town of Reggio Emilia have been internationally acclaimed as providing the best early years education in the world. Indeed, the famous psychologist, Jerome Bruner described the practice as the ‘only true university’ in the world.

The Pre-schools were established after the Second World War as an antidote to political dictatorships. The parents of the town wanted their children to go to pre-schools that ‘practised democracy’ and that developed their children’s capacity and courage to always ask questions, have their ideas respected and acted upon, deal with big ideas and concepts, that are often typically excluded from early childhood.

 The Reggio Inspired Practice Network

We are offering the opportunity for EY teachers and EYFS leaders in the Trust, to join a new learning network, focussed on engaging with the main principles from Reggio Emilia pre-schools, considering together how this is congruent with ‘Learning without Limits’ and Enabling Environments and Critical and Creative Thinking in the EYFS.