How to align staff development plans within your multi-academy trust

Jess Windle - 31 January, 2019

MAT Operations

Category : Blog

How to align staff development plans within your multi-academy trust

It may seem like a challenging task, but aligning your multi-academy trust’s staff development processes and policies should be high on your agenda – especially with the DfE’s new teacher retention strategy shining a light on how schools and trusts support their staff. We’re all aware of how effective performance management and staff development can be in not only recognising but encouraging high performance among staff, but also in improving quality of education in the schools across your MAT.

So why does having an aligned policy with set processes in place across your trust matter? You’ll probably be asked why you want to change things which are already working for your individual schools’ current performance/development plans. However, having alignment and a centralised policy is important for a number of reasons:

• It ensures that all your schools and staff are working towards the same overarching goals
• It makes it easier for MAT staff to review and compare staff performance at different schools if all processes are on the same page
• You can share best management and teaching practice between schools

A trust that puts staff development at the heart of what it does should see improvements in teaching and learning as well. In order to do this, you’ll need a reliable system to carry out staff development activities and appraisals, which can help to easily highlight development needs and track performance & growth across staff (and see the impact this is having on student outcomes).

So, what are the first steps to aligning your trusts processes?

1) Make sure all staff have SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant & timely) objectives that are clear and are explicit in what needs to be done to achieve them. Understanding across the trust how objectives should be created, and ensuring that they are SMART, means each staff member’s individual targets will be consistent with the trust’s wider improvement plans or overall trust/school objectives.

Fig. 1 – Setting a staff member’s development objectives in Arbor MIS

2) Set up a regular cycle across the trust that completes the appraisal policy. You should make sure that it is clear:

• Who can appraise each staff member
• How each staff member’s objectives will be weighted when they are appraised
• What evidence should be required in an appraisal
• How feedback should be dealt with
• The frequency at which these performance reviews should be happening.

This helps to set the basic foundations of a good appraisal policy and ensures that all staff across the trust always know what they are going to be measured on, and how long they have to achieve their goals.

Fig. 2 – A staff member’s Appraisal page in Arbor MIS

3) Finally, it’s important when aligning your trust’s development processes that you share best practice throughout each school. If staff at one school seem happier with their professional development, find out why and see if you can use that expertise to help you improve the process across all your schools. Running an effective development structure should be an iterative process, and it’s a great chance to learn what works best for your trust and your schools.

If you’d like to find out more about how Arbor’s simple, smart cloud-based MIS could transform the way you run your MAT, get in touch via the contact form on our website, email us at tellmemore@arbor-education or give us a call on 0208 050 1028.