Staff Learning and Development 

Whole School Inset Day Training

The school has a total of five annual training days,  three of which are dedicated to education needs including compulsory elements such as safeguarding, manual handling and health and safety.  Two training days are used solely for medical training to ensure that all our staff have the relevant, refreshed competencies to undertake the wide range of medical support tasks required by pupils who attend our school. 

Teachers and HLTAs have weekly meetings and or training sessions of 1.5 hours which compliment the above training sessions. 

Across the year,  staff are required to undertake compulsory training modules,  which change each year.  This year our focus is on: online safety, cybersecurity,  harmful sexualised behaviour and child protection specific to children with SEND. 

Woodlands Friday Training

The changes to our school week have meant that we now have dedicated time each week to ensure the training of all our classroom based staff in areas of education, health and care to ensure that they offer a high quality and professional service to our pupils. Our training sessions vary in that sometimes they are for the whole school while others are for specific groups of staff.  Training is decided by Senior and Middle leaders and key areas of focus are determined each year based on our school improvement priorities.  In 2024-25 we hare focusing on trauma informed working practices,  developing writing and communication across the school,  sensory support and offering supervision in groups. 

Every class also has a dedicated 30 minute period each week in order to focus on class matters.  This offers opportunity to discuss strategies,  individual pupils' changing needs and class organisation matters.  

Our staff teams report that they find the dedicated training offers them the support they need to be confident and professional in their work.  At Woodlands we have to cover all the statutory elements of training for every Key Stage as well as the specific elements that require development in the unique environment that is Woodlands.