A School That Learns: Wotton House as a Learning Organisation

We spend a great deal of time thinking about how our students learn, but we also believe that a good school should itself be a learning organisation.

That means creating a culture in which learning does not stop when someone becomes a teacher, support colleague or school leader. We want the adults working alongside our students to remain curious, develop new skills, deepen their expertise and continue to learn from one another.

There is plenty of evidence of that at Wotton House this year. Two colleagues will complete the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH), two are undertaking Initial Teacher Training, one colleague will complete their Early Career Teacher programme while four others continue theirs. We also have colleagues developing specialist expertise through SENCO training, three Level 5 SEN specialist programmes, Level 5 Thrive Practitioner training and technology micro-credentials through Cisco Networking Academy.

Those formal programmes are important, but they are only part of the picture. Professional learning also happens through colleagues sharing ideas, observing practice, experimenting with different approaches and reflecting on what works. Teachers learn from support staff, support staff learn from teachers and, importantly, all of us learn from our students.

That last point matters. We ask young people to be curious, to take risks in their learning, to accept that they will not always get things right first time and to keep developing. It seems only reasonable that the adults around them should model the same approach.

At Wotton House, we don't want learning to be something that adults simply deliver to students.

Students, teachers, support staff and leaders are all part of a community that learns.

For Facebook, I would then use a shorter version linking to the blog, rather than publishing the whole article there. This also gives you a useful evergreen website article about staff development, recruitment and the culture of the school.