Continuing Professional Development
CPD At Ormiston Victory Academy
At Victory we offer a wide range of CPD opportunities. On this website you will find information about how CPD works and all the different CPD routes available. As you navigate through the different pages, if you find something you might be interested in complete the registering CPD form and if appropriate, book on to the session you wish to attend.
Whilst the vast majority of CPD is personalised, elective CPD decided by individual teachers in consultation with their line manager, there are some compulsory whole school aspects of CPD.
CPD selection takes place during your first performance management meeting in September. In the first place, CPD should be based upon areas for improvement within your own teaching, followed by the department priorities and finally areas to further your professional or pedagogical understanding.
There are a wide range of CPD opportunities for you to access, based upon the stage of your career and your aims for the future.
Each member of teaching staff will be expected to earn at least 30 points (roughly 5 hours) to have completed the CPD programme. On this page, you can see a list of possible CPD opportunities and how many points they would be worth. This list is not exhaustive, staff are encouraged to find CPD that goes beyond this list to allow them to cater their CPD as much as possible to their needs.
30 points is meant to represent a minimum requirement. You are encouraged to attend any CPD that is meaningful and useful to you. You should not feel limited to simply achieving 30 CPD points.
Following a CPD route, such as the Teaching and Learning route, is worth 30 points, and individual session in a route is worth 6 points. There are a number of other CPD opportunities beyond the CPD routes that can be picked by staff as part of the Bespoke CPD route. A list of suggested CPD activities and the number of points they carry can be found here.
Whole school sessions take place six times a year and are usually run on a Wednesday evening. These sessions focus on whole school priorities. This year all of the sessions will be related to the Victory Core Teaching ideas. Each term there will be a training session related to the core ideas:
Each term there will be a tuning cycle related to the CPD which aims to help share good practice and hone strategies related to the core teaching ideas. To support with this there will be a twilight preparation session.
Guided CPD refers to CPD routes that are proscribed either by areas from development from your monitoring data or from discussions with your line manager. You will select CPD from across the CPD that fits with the precise areas of development. This could include any sessions that are part of the different CPD routes or external CPD. This does not preclude you from choosing to take part in other CPD opportunities offered at Victory in addition to the guided elements.
Both the Guided and Bespoke routes offer the opportunity to cater your CPD to precise needs or desires, rather than following a set route. In both cases, you can pick and choose from all the CPD on offer across the academy and beyond. The core difference is the Guided route will see CPD selected as part of a conversation with others whereas the Bespoke route allows for more experienced teachers to direct their own CPD.
Self-directed CPD refers to CPD that you have selected yourself based on further development of your pedagogy, supporting areas of development in your department, or based on your next career step.
Selecting CPD is simple. If you wish to follow any of the CPD routes on offer or part of them, you need to click on booking links listed on the dedicated CPD route page. Alternatively, you can click on the links below for the different routes. Please remember to select which date you would like to attend these sessions.
For any CPD that does not fall into the CPD routes you need to complete the bespoke CPD selection form that can be found below.
You simply need to list what CPD you will be doing. Please remember if you planning to CPD that has a cost attached you need to complete the CPD section of the Leave of Absence form. The Leave of Absence form can be found here.
Sharing good practice is at the heart of CPD at Victory. Morning briefings and department time (through collaborative planning) are key opportunities to share good practice. Also, there are regular open classroom weeks which provide great opportunities for teachers to see great practice in action.
Briefings on Mondays and Fridays are focused on sharing good practice. Mondays will focus on sharing information and strategies about our most vulnerable students in terms of behaviour and safeguarding.
Friday briefings focus on teaching and learning and SEND. Here good teaching strategies will be shared as well as give colleagues the opportunity to access some of the most up to date pedagogy.
Open classroom weeks are a wonderful way to get out and see what teaching is happening across the academy. There will be two of these throughout the year and a timetable of available lessons for observation will be shared in advance. Attendance to a lesson for each of these is compulsory, and those offering lessons will be given CPD points.
Open Classroom Week 1 – W/C 15th November
Open Classroom Week 2 – W/C 11th March
Department meetings take place on a regular basis. The main focus of department meetings is collaborative planning. As part of these meetings there is clear CPD focus aimed at developing subject knowledge and improving and developing the curriculum. CLs are encouraged to give time in meetings to discuss latest developments within their subject and provide subject specific CPD. All department meetings will have a clear agenda shared with staff in advance. Within these meetings each half term there will be opportunities for:
- Moderation of work at KS3,4 and 5
- Pedagogical training to develop the teaching of key principles
- Curriculum review of lessons that half term
Subject knowledge is at the heart of what we do as teachers, but often the most difficult to keep up with. Many teachers find it exceedingly difficult to keep up with the latest developments in their subjects, and to find time to further their knowledge of curriculum development across the different key stages.
In acknowledgement of this, we make subject knowledge CPD a key part of our department meetings as already mentioned.
There are many opportunities to access subject knowledge CPD beyond your department meetings. You are encouraged to take advantage of external opportunities hosted by OAT (Ormiston Academies Trust) and others related to subject knowledge. This may include network and national meetings, as well as sessions run by regional leaders.
You are also encouraged to attend courses run by exam boards regarding exam feedback and marking. We highly recommend that teachers new to the profession or new to a course sign up to be exam markers, and this is an option as part of your bespoke CPD.
There are many ways to access CPD at Victory, from our access to the National College to many CPD resources and opportunities on these pages. OAT also offers many CPD opportunities, all accessible below.
OAT CPD Calendar – Click here
All staff at Victory have access to all the resources from the National College. It has a vast collection of CPD resources, including numerous certificated training webinars. In the last year they have produced some incredibly useful resources based on the curriculum and the new Ofsted framework. It is also perfect for staff looking for training in a specific area of their practice.
Access the National College – Click here
