CET has welcomed the first cohort of teaching staff on its newly launched Leadership Development programme.

More than 30 staff were part of the inaugural events, having signed up in the previous school year for the first step of nationally recognised qualifications in Leading Behaviour and Culture, Leading Teaching, Leading Teacher Development and Senior Leadership.

The launch of the programme supports CET’s ambition to provide multi-level leadership development opportunities across all its schools and to invest in continuing career development for staff.

The courses are designed to provide high quality ‘hands-on’ and continuous professional development (CPD) leading to improvements in teaching and therefore improvement for students. The programmes combine evidence, research and opportunities to practice a variety of skills.

All four courses involve participants running impact projects which will be reviewed in late spring 2022. Completion of the prerequisite course provides a pathway to a fully funded place on one of the reformed National Professional Qualification (NPQ) courses.

Participants starting the courses this month have felt the benefit of experienced tutors who are already known to them. This has enabled high quality conversations and learning from the very beginning.

Later this academic year, in conjunction with the Three Rivers Trust in the North East, we will be recruiting for, and launching, a suite of CET NPQ qualifications.

This will be CET’s first range of nationally accredited qualifications delivered on site. A large number of staff have now trained as Visiting Fellows with the Ambition Institute and are looking forward to delivering the NPQ courses for our schools and others in Cumbria.

Details of how to apply will follow shortly. There’s more on the Leadership Development programme here.

Here are a few comments from the launch events.

“I found the information about different leadership styles interesting and it was a good insight into the leader I want to be.”

“The session was extremely useful and enjoyable. It was great to learn about school cultures and climates, as well as the differences between them.”

“It was a very informative session. The meeting felt supportive and it was great to hear other colleagues’ opinions on leadership styles, different experiences of school cultures and climates and current school visions and ethos and how they are similar or differ.”

“Brilliant first session looking forward to getting started.”