Controlled school leaders - every day a school day!

CSSC provides high quality professional support enabling controlled school leaders to raise standards and make an impact in their schools. In this academic year 2023/24 controlled school leaders signed up to participate in CSSC’s Ethos and Leadership programme, Building Capacity module. This module addresses one strategic priority in the School Development Plan focused on improving learning and teaching.

Building Capacity programme

Jonny Clark, Banbridge Academy, shared the benefits of participating on the Building Capacity modules as part of CSSC's Ethos and Leadership programme 2023/2023.

"I was able to reflect and consider my own leadership and think about the impact on the young people. I had the opportunity to learn about leadership theory and ideas that I was able to bring back to my own personal leadership journey. As part of that I was able to lead a wider whole school review of our school ethos and reflect on the idea that we are a community of excellence at the heart of Banbridge and we consider the fact that we are a caring community and how through our pastoral systems we delivered for the pupils of Banbridge Academy."

This module explores four themes:

1. Supporting and developing an ethos of continuous improvement in order to effect change.

2. Rigorous self-evaluation including an investigation of quality assurance tools that may be used to identify strengths and priorities for improvement.

3. Research-informed practices that impact significantly on learning.

4. Lessons from international models of school improvement.

The Building Capacity module comprises two days of interactive, evidence-informed sessions, coaching/mentoring support to effect change and a final celebratory event that provides a platform for participants to present their findings and share their learning outcomes.

The sessions for the 2023/2024 programme will run from October 2023 to May 2024: Building Capacity Session 1 - Wednesday, 04 October 2023, Building Capacity Session 2 - Wednesday, 08 November 2023 and Building Capacity Session 3 - Collaborate | Disseminate | Celebrate - Wednesday, 15 May 2024

The controlled education sector is the largest, most diverse education sector in Northern Ireland comprising 49% of all schools across all phases: nursery, special, primary, secondary, grammar, integrated and Irish medium schools.