Professional Learning
Mr. Williams leads professional learning at Johnston C.P. School., ensuring that all staff are provided with high quality professional development. As well as working as part of the National Network for Excellence in Mathematics, Mr. Williams holds a Masters in Educational Research.
Asymmetric Fridays
Since September 2019, Johnston C.P. School has run an asymmetric timetable to provide time for professional learning for staff. Pupils finish school at 12:00 on Fridays and staff spend the afternoon developing their professional knowledge. We know that the quality of teaching has the biggest impact on pupil progress and, therefore, we believe that the opportunities that we are able to offer as part of our timetable are very important.
Since we began implementing this timetable, staff have benefited in numerous ways:
- Meeting with teachers at other school and sharing resources and ideas.
- Engaging with training linked to mathematics and numeracy.
- Developing RADY Projects.
- Developing strategies for reading.
- Evaluating and improving our curriculum.
- Engaging with Talk for Writing activities.
- Undertaking Welsh lessons. ​
- Developing strategies for teaching and learning.
How do we support other schools?
In recent academic years, we have supported other schools in a number of different ways. To ensure that we continually challenge ourselves, we frequently invite practitioners from other schools to attend our 'open mornings to share our teaching and learning approaches.
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Our sector leading outdoor learning has been recognised nationally and we are the only school in Wales to be identified as an Outdoor Learning Centre of Excellence (Leaf Education). As part of this, other schools spend time visiting us and observing our pupils learning.
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We share all of our professional learning work on our sister website:
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www.johnstonprofessionallearning.co.uk
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How do pupils benefit?
First and foremost, pupils benefit from the excellent teaching and learning that our staff are able to offer as part of the high quality training that we are undertake.
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All pupils are invited to attend school until 15:20 on Friday afternoons if they so wish. During the afternoon pupils have the opportunity to engage with a range of creative activities such as coding and film making, arts and crafts; outdoor learning activities, homework support and much, much more.
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