Written by Mark Ryan, Assistant Headteacher, Professional Growth & Pathways, Hartland International School, Dubai

Hartland International School is proud and excited to join the COBIS Training Schools network, converging at a time when an ambitious strategy for staff development has been formed. Now referred to as ‘Professional Growth’, Hartland elicited feedback from staff on how it might further improve its offer. Greater opportunities for collaboration, best practice sharing, more agency and a greater diversity of pathways best suited to the individual, were valuable themes elicited via survey and professional dialogues.

With a senior leader swiftly appointed overseeing ‘Professional Growth and Pathways’, the school has responded with a strategy featuring a series of measures aimed at refining classroom practice, enhancing staff wellbeing (on several levels), deepening ranks of middle leadership and delivering professional growth opportunities to those outside Hartland’s immediate locality.

By example, the school has now invested in several 360-video classrooms, intended to encourage teacher self-evaluation and professional coaching conversations centred on teaching practice. Working in partnership with the University of Birmingham, this also offers trainee teachers a privileged opportunity to review their early pedagogy in the classroom, either alone or alongside their teaching mentors. It is accompanied by a rigorous calendar of professional growth opportunities, providing high profile guest speakers, in-house workshops, professional learning communities (PLCs) and further focus on High Performance Learning showcases and development.

Recognising that learning needn’t always take place in the class/staffroom, Hartland has invested in extended membership of the National College so as to afford every member of teaching staff 24/7 access to professional development materials online. The school has started to add its own content to the platform, devising programmes for new staff induction, as well as workshops for developing classroom pedagogy. A large cohort of staff are also taking part in local initiatives aimed at the publishing of year-long action research, sharing early glimpses with colleagues in school.

The majority of the senior leadership team has committed to delivering local NPQs, whilst investing in our own leadership ranks with responsibilities for ECT and PGCE mentoring, ‘teaching partners’, PLC leads and lead teachers contributing to staff development events. Hartland has a sister school in India, recently accommodating a number of back-and-forth visits to share resources, expertise and perspectives.

Hartland is now keen to contribute to the COBIS network this year through several routes, starting with ConnectEd. This will afford an opportunity to share aspects of our journey whilst simultaneously learning from our COBIS partners.

Find out more about COBIS Training Schools