CPD Courses & INSETs

10 Ways to Improve the Quality of Instruction in Lessons

Rosenshine’s principles of instruction have been described as the ‘best bit of educational theory out there’ – but are they fully understood and implemented? Evidence tells us that the quality of instruction is one of the most important factors affecting learners’ achievement. Alongside this, the ‘teacher-student’ relationships remain key to success. This course is suitable for those new to teaching, for managers who want to use these principles to support teachers or as part of lesson observation or professional development, or anyone who feels they could do with a refresher.

10 Ways Towards Effective PSHE in Secondary Schools

Stress, anxiety, competition, hormones, and the media can make secondary PSHE a challenging area.  This course explores a range of practical strategies to make PSHE a successful part of the school curriculum that is enjoyed and valued by learners, and connects to and supports the teaching of subjects such as science, history, English, MFL, etc.

A Guide to Teaching Maths at Key Stage 3 for the Non-Specialist

This course will not only develop the maths knowledge and fluency teachers need, but also look at the pedagogy that delivers high quality and highly engaging maths lessons. We will look at how we can be creative in maths, as well as the importance of applying maths skills in a range of contexts.

Achieving Greater Depth in English

What does it take for your children to achieve greater depth in both reading and writing? This fast-paced, practical, one-day CPD course shares the secrets behind school-wide strategies for success.

Achieving Greater Depth in Maths

How can you help your pupils to achieve greater depth in Maths? This one-day CPD course shares the secrets behind strategies for success.

Analyse School Performance: The New RAISEonline Workshop

Bring your ASP data with you to this practical one-day workshop to understand the Analyse School Performance platform (including the new Ofsted IDSR) and utilise your data to write evaluative comments for your school’s SEF and School Improvement Plan.

Challenging Pupil Behaviour & How to Overcome It

Discover ways to improve pupil behaviour at your school. This practical course provides a range of strategies and approaches to classroom practice that can help.

Classroom Management Skills for Support Staff

This course will help support staff understand the psychology of the classroom and provide a range of strategies to cope with low-level disruption, as well as ways of making sure the behaviour does not re-occur. We will discuss a series of practical evidence-based strategies to help manage ourselves, as well as the learners. The whole course has a clear focus on how effective classroom management provides better outcomes for learners.

Closing The Gap: Raising Attainment For Disadvantaged Pupils

Accelerate the learning of disadvantaged pupils. This dynamic course inspires teachers and leaders with proven strategies to enable our disadvantaged children to reach their potential.

Coaching and Mentoring in Secondary Schools and FE

Coaching and mentoring has benefits far beyond the actual one-to-one or group sessions. It can change the culture of the school and create a sense of community and belonging. Peer mentoring provides learners with a range of life skills and the whole programme can use TAs, support coaches, grounds staff, administrators etc., as well as teachers, thereby creating a sense of cohesion throughout the school or college. This course will focus on skills that can be useful for mentoring both young learners and adults.

Coaching for School Leaders

As a school leader, you know that the value of coaching within your school cannot be underestimated. Discover the full power of successful, effective coaching with this inspirational course.

Cognitive Development in Practice: Creating Thinking Schools

This course provides real-world, practical ideas to help support schools in developing their ‘thinking learners’, giving ownership of that learning process back to the children, to improve outcomes from Early Years through to Year 6.

Courageous Conversations: Successful Communication for School Leadership

Challenging conversations are a daily occurrence for school leaders. In this inspirational, practical INSET, you will be supporting in cultivating your communication skills to get the best outcomes from these all-important conversations.

Creating a Broad and Balanced Curriculum

This exciting CPD course will support primary school leaders in designing and implementing a coherent, rich and varied curriculum that will benefit pupils of all ages.

Creating a Curriculum of Wonder: Irresistible Learning in Special Schools

How do you maintain academic rigour, high expectations, pupil engagement AND meet the wider requirements of children with complex needs?  This interactive course will take you through the stages of curriculum design, all with a special needs focus.

Creative Outdoor Learning

An exciting and inspirational approach to developing learning skills and content at all ages for those eager to find out the benefits of being outdoors.

Data Analysis for Primary Schools

Bring your school’s data along to this practical and insightful course, to discuss practical ways to inform your School Development Plan based on your data. Explore ways to ensure accurate and robust data collection in a practical and achievable way.

Deep Learning: Developing a Toolkit for Revision, Study and Exam Skills

Effective study skills have been identified as a way of improving the performance of all learners and of closing the gap between boys and girls. This course will look at a range of tried and trusted techniques, but will also move beyond the recognised approaches we may be familiar with, to look at new, creative and specific approaches to learning that will both support exam/revision skills and encourage deep learning.

Developing our Teaching Staff: Effective Lesson Observations, Learning Walks and Feedback

There have been many recent studies looking at evidence-based approaches to lesson observations and learning walks in order to make sure that these make a valuable contribution to the development of teaching and learning. Lesson observations are now seen as part of the Ofsted ‘deep dive’ and it is essential that as senior and middle leaders we have a clear idea of how our curriculum is actually being implemented in the classroom. However, lesson observations also have an important role to play within the school’s own development path, as a way of not only identifying where support may be needed but also as a fantastic way of sharing great practise.

Developing Outstanding Subject and Middle Leaders

This informative and practical course will help you to understand, and make progress in, your role as a primary subject leader or middle leader.

Effective Performance Management for School Leaders

Discover how to manage the performance of your staff in a positive way that will support the improvement of their day-to-day performance.

Essential Skills for Front Line and Office Staff

Front line or office staff are often the first people visitors to the school encounter – they are the ‘directors of first impressions’. This course will explore how to get the best out of these staff to help the school or college project the image it wants to a range of ‘customers’ and provide an outstanding quality of service.

Improving Wellbeing for Children

Help all pupils to become autonomous, resilient, flexible learners by focusing on their emotional awareness and wellbeing.

Improving Wellbeing for Teachers and Leaders

Gain experience of practical, insightful and proven strategies to monitor, maintain and grow wellbeing for your staff.

Inspired To Lead: National Leadership Programme

The Inspired to Lead National Leadership Programme aims to create leaders at every level and is suitable for all primary senior and middle leaders and those aspiring to leadership positions.

Introduction to Supporting Learners with SEND

As teachers, we will encounter learners with special needs in all sorts of different contexts and, of course, we will encounter a wide range of special needs. These may manifest themselves in lots of different ways and have lots of different causes. Although these needs can sometimes be seen as a barrier to learning, we must also recognise the strengths these learners often have. This course will provide the essential overview in order to identify, understand and make reasonable adjustments for these learners.

Leading English in the New Ofsted Inspection Framework

Are you confident how to get the best from teachers of English, share good practice and collaboratively meet the requirements of the new Ofsted Inspection Framework? Explore how to share the vision, drive and implementation of your English curriculum – with responses tailored to your specific needs.

Leading Foundation Subjects in the New Ofsted Inspection Framework

Are you confident how to share good practice and collaboratively meet the requirements of the new Ofsted Inspection Framework in your foundation subject? Explore how to share the vision, drive and implementation of your curriculum – with responses tailored to your specific needs.

Leading Maths in the New Ofsted Inspection Framework

Are you confident how to share good practice and collaboratively meet the requirements of the new Ofsted Inspection Framework? Explore how to share the vision, drive and implementation of your maths curriculum – with responses tailored to your specific needs.

Leading Science in the New Ofsted Inspection Framework

Are you confident how to share good practice and collaboratively meet the science requirements of the new Ofsted Inspection Framework? Explore how to share the vision, drive and implementation of your science curriculum – with responses tailored to your specific needs.

Making Assessment Meaningful, Marking Manageable and Feedback Motivating

The words ‘assessment’, ‘feedback’, ‘target setting’ and ‘monitoring progress’ are some of the most common found in education, but do we put ourselves in our learners’ shoes? Do we ask them what sort of feedback they would like, when they want it and how? Are our students involved in target-setting and the assessment process? Evidence suggests that feedback is one of the most important skills we can use to support learning, but only if we get it right. This session will pull apart and explore what we really mean by feedback, target-setting and assessment, so it works for the individual learners. 

Managing Low-Level Disruption Throughout the School

Low-level disruption and underhanded poor behaviour has been an increasing concern for many schools over the past few years. Conflicting ideas, evidence and research have not helped in finding an effective approach. This course aims to clarify those discussions and provide practical approaches that can be critiqued and adapted to suit your specific context and students.

Mastery Across the Curriculum

This dynamic course inspires teachers to provide primary children with meaningful opportunities to move their learning to greater depth, supporting reasoning and strengthening of thinking skills.

Mastery in Leadership

Mastery in Leadership is a one-day CPD course for school leaders that focuses on the qualities of successful leadership. This cutting edge course draws on the latest thinking to inspire school leaders towards developing outstanding schools through reflective and visionary leadership.

New to Deputy Headship

This one-day course explores the key characteristics of a successful deputy head from the perspective of somebody who is new to the role. 

Outstanding Foundation Stage Practice

Evaluate and improve your current Early Years provision.  

This course will give you a greater understanding of current expectations within the statutory EYFS framework, alongside successful strategies to enhance outdoor learning environments, improve parental engagement and, ultimately, ensure successful outcomes for all of your children. 

Outstanding SMSC Across the Primary Curriculum

Outstanding SMSC Across the Primary Curriculum is a practical and thoughtful look at the curriculum requirements for SMSC and PSHE and ways to successfully achieve them.

Outstanding Teaching of Grammar

Improve your subject knowledge in grammar and discover high impact games, strategies and approaches that will help you enhance your children’s grammatical knowledge.

Phonics Catch-Up for KS2: Supporting Pupils out of Covid

Raising Attainment Across the Curriculum

Reading, writing and maths have always had the majority of curriculum time, but how well can your pupils demonstrate progress, reasoning and deeper thinking across all subjects? This INSET explores how great learning across foundation subjects can have a positive impact on the impact core learning and development of each of your pupils.

Raising Attainment in Computing

We live in a computer-based world. It is absolutely vital that our children understand how computers work, how to use them, and how to stay safe around them. This full-day training course will look at all aspects of the computer curriculum, as well as how to use technology to support and inspire learning across the curriculum.

Raising Attainment in Maths

This powerful one-day maths CPD course explores how to ensure pupils can master skills, tackle progressively challenging problems and reason effectively. It includes a range of proven strategies and fun activities to improve outcomes in maths. 

Raising Attainment in Primary Art

All children need the opportunity to be creative and express themselves. It allows children to think, investigate, explore all whilst developing skills and the confidence to be themselves. But how do we ensure that the skills and knowledge children need are taught in enough depth and that our curriculum is progressive?

Raising Attainment in Primary DT

At its best, Design Technology helps children become critical thinkers and metacognitive learners, and develop practical skills in a range of settings. But the creative process in DT can sometimes be a bit aimless and unsophisticated, especially when teachers lack confidence in this double-subject. How do we ensure that DT skills and knowledge are being taught in enough depth, and in a progressive way?

Raising Attainment in Primary Geography

Get an overview of the knowledge and skills that children need to become successful Geographers. This powerful one-day CPD course examines this key Foundation subject, demonstrating how to support all children to develop skills, knowledge, curiosity and a depth of understanding.

Raising Attainment in Primary History

This fast-paced and practical one-day CPD course shares a vision of history that will engage and inspire primary children, but also set them up with the analytical and critical skills that are vital for modern life.

Raising Attainment in Primary Music

Research has linked music education to improvements in working memory, language acquisition, spelling, concentration, effort, behaviour and wellbeing. But it is also an important subject in its own right, and it develops children’s “cultural capital”.

Raising Attainment in Primary R.E.

Discover simple but effective strategies to support children’s R.E. work. This engaging, practical CPD course will help you to link your R.E. provision to current developments in curriculum design and develop your pupils' love of the subject.

Raising Attainment in PSHE

The newly-statutory elements of PSHE come into force in September 2021, after being pushed back by Covid. How prepared is your school? How can you meet your legal obligations without diverting energy and focus from the other things that matter?

Raising Attainment in Reading

Discover simple, effective ways to enhance children’s reading confidence and improve comprehension and word reading skills by attending this engaging and practical course. 

Raising Attainment in Science

Learn creative, practical and achievable methods to raise standards in science and inspire primary scientists. This course will provide the confidence to teach outstanding primary science in a vibrant, interactive way that promotes enquiry and learning at greater depth.

Raising Attainment in Spelling

Discover a range of strategies, activities and games to build children’s confidence in spelling and help them be more adventurous with their vocabulary.

Raising Attainment in Writing

Raise standards in writing, help children generate creative ideas and broaden their vocabulary - with fun, practical and achievable methods that can be implemented straight away.

Raising the Achievement and Ambition of Boys in Secondary and FE

How can we create a culture where all boys have high aspirations and their potential is maximised? The debate about girls’ and boys’ achievement and the ‘gap’ has been with us for many years. But is it a gap between boys and girls or just between individuals? In this course we'll have a chance to explore and critique the evidence and develop teaching and learning approaches that work in our different contexts.

Raising the Achievement in Literacy and Numeracy in Special Schools

Numeracy, literacy and communication skills will be essential for our learners’ development and wellbeing. We shall be looking at many evidence-led creative and multi-sensory approaches to teaching in these areas. We want all learners have access to a full and meaningful curriculum as far as possible and this course will explore how this can be done in our unique circumstances.  

School Development Planning

Bring your School Development Plan along to this practical, informative workshop. We'll explore how to ensure that your SDP helps to drive school improvement and financial management on a day-to-day basis. You will leave this course with a strong understand of what makes an effective plan.

Secondary Year Leaders: Meeting the New Challenges 2021- 22

Year leaders are central in the drive towards outstanding teaching, learning and progress in schools. Throughout 2021 and 2022 there will be a range of challenges, some not yet known, that year leaders will be facing both in terms of learners’ wellbeing and their cognitive development. This course will explore the most recent developments, share best practice and advice, and help you develop the essential skills of a year leader to support all learners and the challenges they may face.

Storytelling in Maths

Storytelling in Maths recognises that many pupils struggle to effectively use vocabulary and language structures to explain and reason. This exciting, practical course will help you embed effective strategies for mathematical language acquisition to improve outcomes in maths as part of your daily teaching.

Stretch and Challenge Across the Secondary School: Developing an Ambitious Curriculum

How can we avoid stretch and challenge being ‘bolt-ons’? How can they be integrated into the secondary school’s/college’s curriculum to provide ambitious learning for all students? How are learners being challenged and how have we established the appropriate pace of the lesson? This course will provide plenty of practical ideas that can be adapted for all subjects, and look at how we can create a culture of challenge and an ambitious curriculum for all learners. 

Stretch and Challenge in English KS3 and KS4

This practical course will look at how we stretch and challenge all learners to be the best they can and get the grades and achievement they deserve in English language and literature. We will explore ways of applying learning to unfamiliar texts and styles of writing, to add more complexity and sophistication to our thinking, to develop the technical skills to analyse and critique work and encourage independent thinking.

Supporting those Struggling with the Requirements of English Language and Literature

Learners may struggle with English language and literature in Key Stages 3 and 4 due to a range of issues such as fluency, problems with comprehension, speed of processing, past experiences, and their attitude to English. This course will provide positive, engaging and practical ideas to re-engage learners in English as well as exploring approaches to teaching mixed-ability classes.

Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in Primary Schools

Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in Primary Schools is an inspiring course that will assist you in meeting the targets of the new Programme of Study for Languages. You will return to the classroom with engaging, interactive and challenging activities to develop speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.

Teaching Relationship and Sex Education in Special Schools

It is important to ensure that all learners have the language and the communication skills to tell us what is happening to them and recognise positive and negative relationships. Our learners need to be educated for their own protection. This is especially important when the learners we are working with are vulnerable and may find it more difficult to know whether situations they find themselves in are appropriate. 

The New Early Years Framework 2021: Everything You Need To Know

Are you ready for the new EYFS Framework, which comes into force in September 2021?  We have investigated provision in "Early Adopter" schools across the country to bring you all the information you might need in this half-day course. 

Using Drama as an Agent of Change to Learner Behaviour

The use of drama as an agent for change has been seen to be effective in supporting learners with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Behaviours are often an attempt to establish or modify a relationship. Students therefore often create problems for themselves and others through inappropriate behaviours intended to amuse, attract attention, or that are the result of an inability to self-regulate. Drama can help improve these students’ ability to relate to people, empower them to solve problems and allow them to see alternative outcomes.

Writing Moderation Workshop: KS1 & KS2

Ensure you are confident in your assessment with this half-day Writing Moderation Workshop for KS1 and KS2.

Year 7: How to Make a Successful Transition to Secondary School

More than ever, the importance of getting Year 7 learners off to a great start in their new school is vital. This course will look at the issues facing the school as a whole and the head of Year 7 in particular. We will explore a range of practical skills necessary for a head of year and share evidence-based best practice, taking into account the most up-to-date advice and practical experience from a range of schools.

Your School and the New Ofsted Inspection Framework

This course explores what the new Ofsted inspection framework could mean for your school and for your curriculum.