Robsack Wood Community Primary School, East Sussex

Effective practice in support staff CPD

John Benwell, Headteacher at Robsack Wood Community Primary shares his vision, encouragement and empowerment of support staff to be proactive in accessing and requesting information on training and development.

John believes that Performance Management involves ALL staff. In his school, class teachers review TAs and INAs, the School Business Manager reviews office and site staff and the Nursery Manager and Extended School Manager review their staff.

The School shows excellent support for CPD and qualifications:

• All staff are invited to attend weekly CPD meetings and child care is provided free.
• Admin and site staff also attend CPD meetings and relevant half of inset days, which is paid time.

The school also provides in-house training and has formed a partnership with Churchwood school to share training for Admin staff. The school identifies its own training needs and recently identified ICT training needs for TAs, teachers and Admin, using year 6 ICT SATs, we then joined up with the Excellence Cluster to deliver up to 20 sessions.

There is a CPD approval process, starting with a chat with the line manager, staff then make their own course bookings once approved. This process allows the member of staff to manage their own CPD expectations, according to their need within context of the needs of the school,

Laptops are provided to staff who justify needing one for their training.

The school has excellent Early years and Extended schools provision:

The school has a children’s centre running full nursery provision, and extended school provision. All nursery staff meet the NVQ requirement, some have a degree and 2 staff are currently studying for a teaching degree. The Extended school is managed by 2 TA3s who also work in the school as TA1 and TA2. To enable this to run smoothly, staff have flexible lunch break times plus a 30 minute to 1 hour long break in afternoon before extended school begins at 3.15 – 6pm. There is a promotion structure and all staff receive in-house training.

Teachers and TAs planning together:

Teachers do planning on Tuesdays after school and TAs are welcome to attend and participate in the planning with their class teacher. This is on a voluntary basis and free child care is provided.

Impact on Learning,Teaching and/or Leadership:

Extended hours for extended schools mean the combined TA posts provide an improved salary and the school gets the standard of staff they want to provide the level of care required. For example: One TA works 4 nights, and another 5 nights per week, The TAs from school work extended hours as TA3s. Next year the extended school will open all year round and staff will take their holidays during working time.

Career progression is encouraged:

• A TA of 14 years was supported through GCSEs, CPD, degree and then onto the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP).
• 1 TA is currently training on through the Foundation Degree (FdA) route towards a BA
• 3 are doing PGCE and one is doing 4 year Initial Teacher Training (ITT) with the University of Brighton.

The career structure and CPD opportunities have raised the standard of those applying for positions. TA posts attract 100 applications, including many wanting GTP; the school is open at the outset about having high expectations of these staff. Staff may move on in a short time but the school gains an enormous amount in that time.

There are high expectations placed on the TAs but in return they are rewarded with recognition and status within the school.