Every school aims to develop and improve the educational journey of its students – but that can’t happen without the continued development and improvement of the professionals who guide them on that road.
Nene Education Trust has announced the appointment of its first Director of Professional Learning – a role that will assist the eight schools within the Trust to become more efficient, effective and sustainable in the education they deliver to children.
Anne Ansell, who as Headteacher, took Redwell Primary School in Wellingborough into the Trust earlier this year, is moving into the newly created role.
With the Trust’s five-year strategic plan already in place, one of Anne’s first tasks will be to sit down with leaders across the eight schools to find out what their priorities are.
“It really is my dream job.” said Anne. “As much as I love being a headteacher – and I’ve been a head for 16 years – working with teachers and leaders beyond one school to identify what we can offer them in terms of growth and development, and what that is going to look like, is very exciting.”
Redwell Primary School joined Windmill Primary in Raunds, Stanwick Primary, Newton Road School in Rushden, Raunds Park Infants, St Peter’s CE Junior, Woodford CE Primary and Manor School when it became part of Nene Education Trust in August.
Since 2014, Redwell has included the 5 Wells Development Centre, which is recognised as an independent training centre for education professionals. The centre will continue to offer courses across the sector, whilst also developing more specific training strategies for those working within the Trust schools. The centre has recently been named as a delivery partner for the county-wide teaching hub based at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby.
“Becoming a delivery partner shows the value the hub places on the work we are doing within the Trust, and our own staff can only benefit from that,” said Anne. “It’s an attractive proposition for teachers who are either just coming into the profession, or who want to further develop their career pathway, to work in a school that can offer that level of training options.
“It means that we can attract and retain the best people, facilitating their career development and in doing so, improve outcomes for learners. There’s never going to be an improvement for children if you don’t work to improve the teaching they receive.”
In order to identify training priorities, November sees the first of the Trust’s Learning Communities events, a Trust-wide learning day that will give staff the opportunity to find out more about main areas of interest and which will lead to an ongoing focus on best practice and the sharing of ideas.
Anne added: “This is an exciting opportunity for me and the Trust. Everything we do has got to be about improving outcomes for pupils. The children in school now are employees of the future and we have to prepare them for that, that’s what it all comes back to.”
Chris Hill, CEO of Nene Education Trust, said: “What we want to do is bring together the threads of our organisation, so that the educational side of HR – finding the right people, training them and retaining them – is properly supported, and the new role of Director of Professional Learning will feed into that.
“In order to improve schools, we have to identify what we do well and what we could do better and improve the people who work in them in order to improve the schools themselves.
“Anne has a fantastic track record in improving people within education and in her role will ensure that what we offer people in terms of development is consistent, so that it doesn’t matter which of the schools an individual works in, they will get the support and training they need to achieve their goals and the school’s goals.
“We have a lot of good practice going on within our schools but we must continue to build on that and get the delivery outcomes we want and that our staff, parents and children want.”
For further information about the Nene Education Trust, visit neneeducationtrust.org.uk
