Teaching and Learning Vision

At The Gateway Learning Community, we define teaching as the process of guiding and facilitating learning. We teach for understanding, retention and the application of knowledge and the development of transferable learning competencies.

We believe that in order for pupils to make good progress, lessons should be planned from the perspective of ‘thinking’ and the extent to which pupils are challenged to think deeply and pushed forward with enough intensity.

We believe that teachers should consistently provide high quality teaching and feel empowered to continually improve their teaching and learning approaches in a professional and supportive environment, to be the best we can be.

We believe this can be achieved through a carefully constructed programme of professional development.

Leadership

Teaching and learning leads:

• ensure the effective and impactful implementation of the teaching & learning and assessment policy
• ensure teaching and learning has a high profile in each academy and across the Trust through the use of staff briefings, teaching and learning briefings, bulletins, masterclasses, staff meetings, etc.
• identify good practice and proactively share this to reinforce teachers’ understanding of what constitutes quality first teaching
• maintain an accurate understanding of the quality of teaching and learning and proactively plan universal and targeted support where required to ensure all teaching and learning is at least consistently good
• work collaboratively with curriculum leads to ensure the implementation of effective pedagogical approaches across the curriculum
• maximise partnership working to strategically support the development of teachers

Professional Development

• A well planned and differentiated programme of professional development informed by outcomes from monitoring, evaluation and key priorities
• Opportunities for teachers to engage in purposeful professional debate on the effectiveness of teaching and learning approaches and current research to inform their teaching repertoire
• Developing teachers’ understanding of the learning model, cognitive science, how memory works and therefore how pupils learn most effectively, to inform teaching and learning approaches, such as: spaced retrieval, interleaving, managing cognitive load, working with schemas, etc.
• Instructional coaching which supports teachers to use deliberate and successful teaching and learning approaches and develops their ability to evaluate and refine specific aspects of their practice
• Teachers have regular opportunities to observe best practice in their academy and across the Trust
• A well-planned and implemented Early Career Teaching [ECT] programme, in conjunction with Ambition Institute and the Professional Learning Network