Development Portfolio

This area of focus aims to realigns the way in which the Trust carries out its Performance Management processes. Where we are increasingly empowering classroom practitioners to use their professional judgement, we aim to empower them to lead on their own Professional Development. We strive for colleagues to have opportunities to explore different roles, responsibilities and contexts to produce a Development Portfolio as part of their Performance Management.

The Action Research which colleagues complete is subject to their own interests alongside their School Improvement Action Plan and/or Trust collaborative CPD priority areas. Colleagues are supported through the year by their Appraiser who will coach them through the process, and guide them in the right direction to be able to review their Action Research project from alternative perspectives including:

• Cross Phase – opportunities to consider their project at a contrasting Primary/Secondary setting.
• Pastoral – opportunities to consider how attendance and wellbeing could impact their project.
• Curriculum – opportunities to review their curriculum at a strategic level, and consider cross-curricular opportunities to formulate the successful project.
• Personal Development – opportunities to embed aspects of the PD curriculum within the project, identifying the importance of this alongside the academic curriculum.

At the end of the year, all colleagues share their project in a Poster Conference. This will be the opportunity for collaboration and the formation of group based projects in future years that span across Primary and Secondary settings.

An example of an Action Research project can be seen below:

Example Project – To identify the impact of low reading ages in accessing the Secondary History curriculum, and how strategies can support students in their understanding.

• Cross Phase Target - a chance for secondary/primary colleagues to collaborate on similarities and differences;
  • History teacher collaborates with Year 6 teacher on strategies to support reading opportunities across the curriculum and ways in which primary setting could implement some strategies that would benefit subject specific vocabulary in preparation for students attending secondary school.
• Pastoral Target - Opportunities to speak to a DSL or Head of Year about the pastoral impact of a project;
  • History teacher to consult with Head of Year about parental engagement in reading, along with possible deprivation indicators which may affect reading age.
• Curriculum Target - Working with the LT from an alternate department, or colleagues to form a cross curricular project, learning how to measure impact and increase progress;
  • Meeting with English LT in current secondary, and another secondary school in the Trust to identify how programmes such as Accelerated Reader can impact on Reading Age, along with strategies that could be taken back into the History classroom.
• Personal Development Target - Identify links to PD criteria and how this can be threaded through the action research project.
  • Integrate opportunities for wider reading which incorporates threads from the PD curriculum (such as fundamental British Values) and build students’ resilience.