Staff development policy
Policy statement and vision
Newcastle City Learning recognises that its staff are vital in meeting its strategic objectives and in delivering the highest quality learning experiences for learners. Learning and continuous professional development are essential to the professional practice of each member of staff and will enable the service to deliver its vision of providing high-quality learning experiences for all Newcastle city residents.
Scope and purpose of policy
Newcastle City Learning believes that staff are key to the success of the service and that their commitment and expertise is at the heart of the quality of our provision.
This policy applies to all staff within the service.
Quality standards at Newcastle City Learning
Newcastle City Learning has minimum qualification standards for all staff:
Student Experience front line staff are required to achieve at least level 2 in Information, Advice and Guidance within two years of taking up their post.
Newcastle City Learning Tutors are required to achieve a recognised teaching qualification after taking up employment with us. We expect all tutors to obtain a L5 Teaching qualification within the first three years of taking up their post, unless they were teaching a low-level unaccredited course.
In addition, all tutors are required to ensure that they maintain their credibility to teach by holding a suitable qualification and keeping up to date in their specialised vocational area/subject specialism.
Learning Support Assistants are required to achieve at least level 2 in Supporting Teaching and Learning within the first 2 years of taking up their post.
Where appropriate staff are required to achieve subject specialisms (level 4/5) in English, maths, ESOL and LLDD within an individual agreed timescale to be discussed and agreed at yearly appraisal.
All staff will be responsible for their own personal continuous professional development. All teaching staff will have access to appropriate CPD opportunities provided by the service central Advanced Practitioners team. Staff can also apply to participate in external professional development programmes and events.
In order to access personal development financial support the individual member of staff must complete an appropriate application form for funding which will require the support of their direct line manager.
This application will go before the Senior Management Team for approval to ensure that we spend our Continuous Professional Development budget fairly and with maximum impact to the service.
Only when finance has been approved, should the individual member of staff proceed to enrol on any professional development programme.
Generally, Newcastle City Learning will cover 50% of the costs of any approved CPD activity. There are rules for repayment of the support funding should the member of staff not complete the CPD programme or leave the employment of the Council subsequently. Please see the application form for further details.
All staff are required to complete mandatory training in some subjects/areas of their practice from time to time.
Information and training on Health and Safety Procedures will be provided to all staff on induction and regular updates will be given through internal communications.
Information and training on British Values, PREVENT and how to raise student awareness of how to keep themselves safe in modern Britain will be provided to all members of staff.
All teachers are required to raise their awareness of climate change and the impact of our actions both personally and within the workplace in reducing our carbon footprint. Suitable training will be provided to all staff in this respect.
- Staff member to complete CPD request form and submit to their direct line manager.
- Direct line manager to send completed form to their Senior Lead, who will take it to the senior management team meeting for approval.
- Senior Lead to feedback to direct line manager on the outcome of the CPD request; direct line manager then feeds back to staff member.
- Completed CPD request filed in CPD folder and if approved recorded on the CPD expenditure log.
Teaching, learning and assessment development for curriculum delivery staff
All staff will receive a lesson visit by a member of the Advanced Practitioner team at least once a year. Whilst judgements will be made about the quality of learning seen during that visit, the main purpose of the visit is to establish a starting point for the teacher, and to provide good quality constructive feedback on how the facilitation of learning could be improved for the future.
Follow up coaching support can be provided by the team of Advanced Practitioners to work with teachers to further support them to improve the quality of the learner experience within their classrooms.
Mentoring and coaching support is available to all our teachers on request. In addition, Curriculum managers can request additional support for tutors, should they feel that this would be beneficial.
In addition, Curriculum Managers and Curriculum Quality Leads may undertake Learning Walks which will indicate what is going well and offering suggestions, where appropriate, of how learning opportunities might be even stronger.
The service will continuously seek to invite feedback from learners directly to identify the quality of the learning service the experience at Newcastle City Learning. This may be through talking directly with learners, or through online surveys.
All substantive staff will meet with their line-manager at least once a year through the “My Conversation” procedures to discuss their performance at work. This is an ideal opportunity to undertake a discussion around the quality of learning sessions facilitated by tutors and to talk about what support would be available to tutors to further enhance the quality of lessons.
A key focus of any My Conversation discussions with practitioners will be around their practice and in particular teaching, learning and assessment practices.
All staff have a duty to complete mandatory training, for example to update their knowledge around PREVENT, health and safety, safeguarding etc.
All teaching staff also have a duty to maintain their practice at a high-standard and undertake relevant development on a regular basis. This should be reviewed at ‘My Conversation’ meetings to identify targets for appropriate further training and development.
Updated September 2024.