Widening the Lens at LLT

Each year Lydiate Learning Trust provides a whole Trust development day. This year’s event took place on Monday 20th February and focused on “Widening the Lens in Education”.

The theme originated from the Governor development event held earlier in the year when our CEO, Ann Stahler, led a session on the National Governance Association “Widening the Lens Toolkit”.

Ann encouraged Governors and Trustees to engage with rigorous, dispassionate impact evaluation. Questions on reading standards, poverty proofing, meaningful interactions, excellent careers education, partnerships, local expertise and gender made them really think.

During the Trust development day, we took the “Widening the Lens” agenda even further. In the morning we went deeper into ensuring our Special Education Needs students achieve the very best education, and our classrooms deliver for everyone. Our CEO produced a think piece based on her research into boys performance which will be followed this term by sessions for staff, students and parents led by Gary Wilson. In the afternoon, many staff benefitted from a focus on Trauma Awareness, Managing Behaviours and helping children to self-regulate. External speaker, Jane Pepa from Bee Kind Training provided an excellent thought-provoking session.

Alison Brady, Head of the Trust’s SCITT, Chartered Teacher and fully endorsed Coaching Instructor, also delivered another round of training in Instructional Coaching – twenty four staff have completed the full programme to date, with more to follow.

Finally, staff were given time to digest and reflect on the day’s events and how they could use what they’d learnt to improve their own practice.

Janette Vincent, Headteacher at Childwall Sports and Science Academy said, “As usual, the Trust inset day was very interesting and thought provoking. During the sessions you could see staff reflecting on their own practice and considering how they could use the ideas presented. Great day all round”