At Greensteds School we believe in making the most of every opportunity to improve the quality of Teaching and Learning taking place in the classroom. We also strongly believe that we have a responsibility to our staff to help them develop professionally whilst here at Greensteds. 

Greensteds is not a school standing still. We aim to move with the times and provide the most rewarding experiences to all members of our community. As such we have introduced the Diploma for Teachers and Trainers in an effort to structure this development in a recognisable and credit worthy way.

The Diploma is made available to staff who have a need and a strong desire to be more competent in carrying out learning and development activities. The group sizes are kept small in order to increase the quality of discussion and individual and personalised tutorial time available to each candidate. The current group has four candidates and they have successfully built a team approach to their studies, helping, observing and sharing valuable experiences with each other.

The Diploma course provides clear, modern and valued performance standards.  The skills knowledge and understanding involved in the course are generic and fully transferable to all age groups and all subjects. This year the candidates’ subject areas are as diverse as Psychology, Drama and Thinking Skills and General Science. The Diploma recognises the range of effective teaching and learning methods, technologies and styles now available and encourages candidates to be thoughtful and resourceful in their approach to particular learning needs.

The Diploma is assessed through the completion of four module assignments, following a structured template, which is submitted on-line throughout the course of the year. Each module is designed to take approximately 60hours of preparation which requires candidates to be well motivated and organized. Each assignment has a practical component, a number of personal responses and a 1000 word reflective report.

The modules enable candidates to develop and demonstrate skills, knowledge and understanding in:

• Design-planning and preparing appropriate learning programmes and sessions
• Practice-facilitating active learning and learner involvement
• Assessment-assessing learners’ progress and achievement
• Evaluation-improving teaching and learning through evaluative development

There is a quantity of physical evidence required to be submitted for each module. This includes schemes of work, lesson observation forms and sample assessment materials. This is attached to files and submitted on line.

Here’s what our current cohort of candidates has to say about the course:

“This course has really helped me develop as a teacher. It has taken me back to the basics and through self evaluation and review I have developed into a far more effective classroom practitioner.”

“I have been amazed at how helpful these sessions have been. I was slightly skeptical to start with but as the course has progressed I have seen the real value in what we have done. It has been well structured and I am immensely grateful for the time and effort the tutors have gone to ensure the four of us have made the required progress.”

“It is not an easy course. You need to be prepared for some really hard work and late nights in order to meet the deadlines. The tutors have been really supportive and I know that I am a better teacher now than back in August. “

“You need to be prepared to be vulnerable and accept that the way you’ve doing things for so long might not necessarily be the best for the pupils. The scariest bit is asking the learners for their feedback on how a particular lesson went. It is surprising what you learn about how the pupils perceive your teaching.”