Professional Development and Appraisals

By Principal David Gray

I recently met with Nado Chelala, the Head of Professional  Development and Appraisal, and discussed training needs, including those for teachers embarking on the IB or Cambridge Programmes. Thanks to the very generous grant of 22000 US dollars by the IB Organization many of the training needs which are essential can be met this year for teachers who may be teaching IB courses for the first time or require a refresher. Training for the Cambridge Programme will also go ahead as it is an essential and integral part of our educational approach at all levels in the school. We also discussed preparations for the In-Service Training Day in May which will attract both internal and external speakers and which is designed to be helpful in professionally developing colleagues, but also in providing them with personal outlets for the management of the strains and stresses of teaching and learning, and of our daily lives.

We had some discussion on progress with appraisals since September 2021 and up until the provision of the appraisal programme for 2022-2023. We considered the effectiveness of the monitoring and mentoring of new teachers, talked about their progress and also discussed the progress and concerns of new administrative staff as well. 

In addition, Nado and I also her leadership of the Whole School Development plan item on school values which will begin to be implemented in the coming months, and recommendations for which are designed to embed school values in such a way that they become part of the psyche of all children at the school as part of their holistic education.