How can you ensure that CPD in your school consistently meets the highest standards? Our new Teacher Quality Mark can help you maintain training standards in your school.

Exciting news from camp OE…

Here at Optimus Education we have just launched our first online only course! Managing Self-Harm by Dr Pooky Knightsmith is now online and is the latest course in the In-House Training library, so please do take a look. (On a personal note, it’s my first training course since moving across from the conferences team at Optimus, so very exciting!) In conjunction with this new training course, Pooky will be running a half-day training session on 5^th May. It promises to be practical, engaging and to offer crucial, practical advice for:

• Raising awareness of self-harm - clarify what self-harm is and understand how it affects pupils of school age.
• Responding appropriately to cases of self-harm - equip yourself to identify pupils who self-harm and know how to respond to disclosures.
• Preventing self-harm - develop a greater understanding of the triggers for student self-harm and learn specific prevention techniques.
• Dealing with more severe cases of self-harm - provide appropriate support and techniques to help pupils who self-harm and prevent escalation.

And here comes the even better bit… At this event we’ll be launching the Teacher Quality Mark!

What’s the Teachers’ Quality Mark and why is it so exciting?

Essentially it’s a set of professional development standards designed by you. We spoke to dozens of CPD leaders from across the country to find out what makes great CPD. We asked:

• what makes for a great CPD session
• what your challenges are around delivering great CPD
• how you ensure that your training is high-impact.

With these answers in mind, we collated your thoughts into a set of 5 concise standards representing your expectations for great professional development. At the self-harm training course in May, we want attendees to rate the content of what they see in line with the CPD standards. If it meets these testing criteria, we will reward the course with the Teachers’ Quality Mark!

Go on then, show me the standards…

OK then, here they are. Tell me what you think!

1. Clear outcomes: Information about the outcome of the course or professional development activity is clearly stated from the outset, including the skills and practical strategies learned by participants and the intended effect on the pupils in the classroom.
2. Relevant and targeted: The training is carefully pitched to meet the needs of specific groups of attendees. Each session clearly indicates who would benefit from the training, and the information is tailored accordingly.
3. Expertly informed: This training is written by expert practitioners in the education field. All advice is accurate, up-to-date and informed by effective and often innovative practice.
4. Highly engaging: The training is engaging for participants – it includes interactive elements, case studies, practical strategies and actively promotes collaboration with peers.
5. High-impact: This training has an impact on the skill levels of teachers and the learning of pupils. To help measure this, there are thoughtful suggestions for assessing how successful the course is in transforming practice.