The PTI wish to celebrate schools that share our values; we believe long-term commitment to embedding The PTI philosophy into educational practice creates real impact. We want to recognise the courage and initiative of schools who empower inspirational teaching and subject specific pedagogy.
"Codsall’s involvement with The PTI began in February 2023, with my attendance the Leadership Symposium over two days. During the two days, I met with fellow headteachers, discussed the similarities, differences, challenges and solutions that people were working on in their settings and heard from a number of influential and high-profile speakers about some of the issues of the day. What I valued most of all, was the chance to consider the journey that Codsall needed to make and to have the space and time to think deeply about the route we would take.
Shortly after the Leadership Symposium, I signed up the school with The PTI’s Unlimited membership package and undertook to work with a Development Partner on a school leadership project. As part of the project, The PTI offered a number of CPD events throughout the year and I used this as a chance to really involve the wider senior leadership team of the school. The school has a long history of success and an excellent reputation, but in recent years and following COVID, had lost some efficacy in providing the best possible education. The chance to attend these CPD events with various members of my leadership team, was a chance to collaborate and do some thinking together, helping to ‘re-set’ the vision of the school and also to help the senior team more widely realise that there was change needed in some areas of practice, as the world had moved on.
Over a period of time, most SLT members have been able to benefit from the CPD provided by The PTI and as a team we helped the school’s culture shift from one which was highly focused on accountability and outcomes, to one that was focused on high quality provision and engaging in improvement as individuals, groups and as an organisation. We overhauled the appraisal system, in part using ideas picked up in conversation with other Headteachers and in doing so shifted the dialogue of staff to one that was around teaching and learning. Most staff now have two appraisal objectives each year, the first is simply ‘talk me through your improvement journey over the last year and the CPD you have engaged with to improve your practice’; the second ‘talk to me about the contributions you have made to your teams (or the school’s) improvement plan’.
Alongside this radical shift from outcomes led objectives, we have been able to provide two avenues of high quality CPD for staff. The first is the access to The PTI’s unlimited offer of online, face to face and residential CPD opportunities; the second is our in-house TLC approach to CPD, where staff work to support each other, trial new things and share best practice – both have been readily utilised and on my last audit of bookings with The PTI, staff engagement levels meant that each CPD event was costing the school less than £100 – really great value!
In 2024 we were given The PTI Leadership Accreditation Mark and in this academic year, a different member of the team has led a new leadership project focussed upon inclusion. Again, the benefit of hearing from others and thinking deeply has allowed us to adjust practice and build upon the strengths we already have – there is no disadvantage gap in our most recent outcomes data, but our work and adaptations through the lens of inclusion this year have been significant thanks to the thought-provoking engagement with The PTI."
Simon Maxfield, Headteacher at Codsall Community High School
If you are interested in our Unlimited membership, please email our team at: info@ptieducation.org