LEO Professional Learning Newsletter 

Train to teach with LEO Academy Trust!

LEO Academy Trust is incredibly proud to work in partnership with the National Institute of Teaching as an Associate College to deliver Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Early Career Framework (ECF) and National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) from September 2025. 

Associate Colleges are successful school trusts, selected because of their wealth of in-house expertise in professional development and their deep relationships in their local areas. This collaboration allows us to be at the forefront of educational excellence, providing local teachers with unparalleled opportunities for professional growth, learning and development. Together, we are shaping the future of teaching and learning, ensuring that every child receives the highest quality education.

Applications for our primary ITT courses are now open for September 2025! Our initial teacher training is a fully immersive school-centred programme - aspiring teachers will be in the classroom from the very start. But full immersion does not mean that you will be thrown in the deep end: our trainees are mentored and have central training once a week.

To apply for a place on our ITT programme, please click here. 

To register your interest to find out more information, please click here.

To explore our ITT site, please click here.

LEO Initial Teacher Training Open Morning

Join us for our Initial Teacher Training Open Morning at Shawley Community Primary Academy on Wednesday 11th December, 9:30am-11:30am.  

•  Meet the team.  

•  See teaching in action.  

•  Gain valuable insights. 

Don't miss out and sign up for a place today! 

LEO Professional Learning Opportunities 2024-2025

There are lots of professional learning opportunities on offer for 2024-2025.

Take a look at our new LEO Professional Learning Brochure here which contains the dates and times of upcoming training sessions.

• Network Learning Community Sessions

• Early Career Teacher Professional Learning

• Subject Specific Professional Learning

• Writing Networks

• Google Professional Learning

• Leadership Professional Learning

• Coaching opportunities

LEO & SET Early Career Teacher Subject Specific Sessions 

There are lots of subject specific professional learning opportunities for our ECTs on offer for 2024-2025.

Take a look at our new ECT Subject Specific Professional Learning Programme here which contains the dates and times of upcoming training sessions.

Creative Teacher Programme

Classroom practitioners will become more reflective and creative, gaining a deeper understanding of the pedagogy that ensures a significant impact on the progress of, and relationships with, pupils and colleagues. Through this programme you will become a more self-regulated and independent thinking professional.

Outstanding Teacher Programme

Classroom practitioners will gain a deeper understanding of the latest innovative pedagogy and develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours to make a significant impact on their pupils and inspire others to become outstanding practitioners within a coaching culture.

Power of Coaching  Programme

Practitioners will gain a deeper understanding about the power of coaching and the impact that great coaching has on learning - being able to confidently apply several strategies to deepen the thinking of pupils; inspire colleagues to develop and grow; and become a more reflective and energised professional. As a credible coach, professionals will be able to coach informally, formally and in a structured way using the OLEVI Analytical Coaching programme.

Outstanding Leadership in Education Programme

The programme recognises that all people are leaders, and that developing leadership ensures that well balanced challenge and support creates impact. You will engage with evidence-informed leadership pedagogy to discover how to lead and manage individuals, classes, teams, and projects more effectively for greater impact.

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Programme

Classroom support staff will become more reflective, confident, and creative through gaining a deeper understanding of high-quality classroom pedagogy. You will develop the attributes to make a significant impact on the outcomes of, and relationships with, both pupils and colleagues.

Senior Outstanding Leadership in Education Programme

The best senior leaders have an aspirational vision and know how to balance challenge and support, successfully overcoming complex barriers to achieve significant and sustainable impact. The programme will provide greater clarity, grow confidence, and develop competence of senior leaders, enabling strategic reflection on organisational improvement.

Prompting Guide 101

By Gemini for Google Workspace

From the very beginning, Google Workspace was built to allow you to collaborate in real time with other people. Now, you can also collaborate with AI using Gemini for Google Workspace to help boost your productivity and creativity without sacrificing privacy or security. The embedded generative AI-powered features can help you write, organize information, create images, accelerate workflows, have richer meetings, and much more, all while using your favorite apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Meet, Google Slides, and Gemini Advanced (the standalone chat experience available at gemini.google.com with enterprisegrade security). Gemini is accessible right where you are doing your work — with access to your personal knowledge base in Drive, Docs, Gmail, and more — so you can enhance and create powerful workflows across the Workspace apps with less tab switching and interruption. This guide provides you with the foundational skills to write effective prompts when using Gemini for Workspace. You can think of a prompt as a conversation starter with your AI-powered assistant. You might write several prompts as the conversation progresses. While the possibilities are virtually endless, you can put consistent best practices to work today. 

Find out more here.

What does the evidence base tell us about effective oral language practice?

By Chloe Butlin

Whatever your role in school, no doubt you’ll have noticed the rise in interest in oral language. Deemed by some as the ​‘next big thing’ and by others as a passing trend, the topic is also encumbered by debates over definitions and practice.

There is a dizzying array of terms to describe aspects of oral language: talk, debate, dialogue, and oracy. These terms are accompanied by a huge breadth of practice that includes presentational talk, exploratory talk, paired or group work, literacy and debate. 

Find out more here.

Disciplinary talk

By Alex Quigley

Language used in the classroom becomes increasingly sophisticated, specialised and subject specific as pupils progress from primary to secondary school. Disciplinary talk is a recognition that mathematicians, scientists, and geographers, communicate in subtly different ways, and that talk routines can be well matched to curriculum content in those different areas. 

Click here to find out more.

Let's read it again: the power of storytime replays

By Matthew Courtney

Early Years practitioners, librarians, parents and anyone who has ever read a book to young children will be very familiar with the phrase ​‘Can we read it again?!’. While adults might fear hearing these five words again and again, research indicates there are benefits to revisiting much-loved texts.

This blog will explore the research which highlights the multiple benefits of reading aloud to children in the EYFS and Key Stage 1, the specific benefits of revisiting the same text and consider what this means for our classroom practice.

Click here to find out more.

New EEF podcast: retrieval practice

The EEF has published the latest episode of its podcast, ‘Evidence into Action’, focusing on retrieval practice.

Alex Quigley is joined by co-host, Rachael Cattrall and expert guests including: Dr Tom Perry – Associate Professor, University of Warwick, Rachael Wilson – Year 6 teacher & Deputy Research Director of Norwich Research School and Mark Miller - Director of Bradford Research School, Dixons Academies Trust.

Click here to find out more.

Parental Engagement in Early Reading.

By Lincolnshire Research School

Recommendation 5 in the EEF Guidance Report ​‘Preparing For Literacy’ is to support parents to understand how to help their children learn and suggests ​‘running training workshops for parents with explicit advice on reading is likely to be helpful’.

Where an EYFS setting has adopted recommended approaches of print referencing in class storytime, (see previous blog ​‘The value of Print referencing in the EYFS classroom’) a workshop early in the year to share print-referencing skills with parents would be ideal.

Click here to find out more.

Recorded Webinar - Understanding the Brain: Exploring Self and Co-Regulation as the Foundation for Early Communication Development

By Stella Jones, Town End Research School

Research shows the brain is most flexible and adaptable to learning during the earliest years of life. This is the time when the foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life are laid down. 

Join Stella Jones, Director of Town End Research School, as she explores how brain anatomy underpins the development of early communication through self-regulation and co-regulation. We’ll explore the role of brain structures in how these critical skills are developed. 

Click here to find out more and view the recorded webinar.

Talk for Language and Deeper Learning

Date: Monday 20th January 2025

Time: 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM 

Venue: Online

Cost: Free

Supporting colleagues to understand the role of talk for supporting language development and deeper learning.

• Contextual vocabulary acquisition

• Teaching specific words

• The most neglected and yet most useful words

• Teaching and promoting talk

Click here to find out more.

Pride and Progress  - How leaders create LBGTQ+Inclusive Spaces

Date: Monday 29th January 2025 

Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm

Venue: Online

Cost: Free

In recent years, the push for inclusivity within educational environments has gained significant momentum. Yet, while progress has been made, there is still much work to be done to ensure that every student feels seen, supported, and safe. In this session you will explore the ways in which our schools and classrooms can make LGBT+ inclusive spaces. We will consider language, rights and responsibilities, best practice, and there will be time for questions and answers.

Click here to find out more.

SAfE Leadership Conference 2025

Date: Tuesday 4th March 2025

Time: 9am-2.15pm

Venue: Hilltop Garden Room, RHS Garden Wisley

SAfE’s annual leadership conference returns to the beautiful setting of RHS Wisley in 2025. We welcome all headteachers, heads of school, executive headteachers, principals and CEOs to attend.

Join colleagues to network, enjoy lunch and hear from our speakers on:

• Changes to curriculum and assessment

• Sustainable leadership

• Flexible working

• AI and inclusion

Click here to find out more.

How TAs can support learning and improve attainment

Date: Monday 3rd March

Time: 3.45pm-4.45pm

Venue: Online

Cost: Free

We delve into the EEF’s new guidance report Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants and consider the positive impact TAs can have on pupil achievement through the right support, setting and tools.

Click here to find out more.

Principles of Powerful Learning - 10 key concepts in the classroom

Date: 5 sessions from Monday 17th Match to Monday 12th May

Time: 3.30pm-5.00pm

Venue: Online

Cost: Free

The Principles of Powerful Learning are 10 principles drawn from Cognitive Science that help teachers understand how students think, learn and remember.

Understanding these principles can help teachers optimise the way they explain concepts, design tasks, and sequence learning. The course will break down each of the principles, and provide practical examples and non-examples from the classroom to illustrate each one.

Click here to find out more.

Sustainable School Improvement

Date: 11th June 2025

Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm

Venue: Online

Cost: Free

Join us for an insightful webinar focused on sustainable school improvement strategies, designed to empower educators and school leaders with practical approaches to fostering continuous growth and success.

Click here to find out more.

Sustainable School Improvement

Bitesize Explanations Video Series  

Subscribe to this brilliant video series where Jade Pearce,  Evidence Leaders, will explain an evidence informed strategy and how it can be applied within the classroom.  

You will receive one video per half term, directly to your inbox.  

The videos will include:

Autumn 1- Retrieval Practice 

Autumn 2- Interleaving

Spring 1- Cognitive Load Theory 

Spring 2- Responsive Teaching

Summer 1- Feedback 

Summer 2- Effective 'We do' modelling 

Click here to find out more.

LTA Youth Schools

Do you remember that the LTA Youth Schools teacher training courses are free and online? Take a look today and get inspired by the courses which have been developed by teachers for teachers.

You can complete the training on your phone, tablet or computer at any time of the day. Save your progress and continue later, if you don't have time to finish the course in one go.

Once completed, your school will receive a £250 reward voucher*, thanks to the Tennis Foundation. The voucher can be redeemed against 10 hours of curriculum support from a local LTA Accredited coach or on tennis equipment.

Log in to the LTA Youth Schools website and explore the teacher training pages.

Explorify Hosts Podcasts

In each podcast episode, an Explorify Engagement Leader hosts a conversation about an aspect of primary science with a guest expert. In their chat they share stories, tips and tricks and they signpost to other support and great resources. 

Click here to find out more.

Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path with Google

This learning path provides an overview of generative AI concepts, from the fundamentals of large language models to responsible AI principles.

Find out more here.

Mind the Gap with Tom & Emma

In the show, Mind the Gap: Making Education Work Across the Globe, Tom and Emma interview experts from the US, UK and beyond, and share timely insights on K-12 trends; research-based approaches in need of greater reach; and innovative strategies to close global gaps. 

Click here to find out more.

The Open University - Open Learn

Design your own CPD with these free resources from The Open University, created for teachers and teaching assistants working across the UK.

All the content in this hub has been selected by academics across The Open University, specifically for teachers, teaching assistants and support staff working across the secondary, primary and early years sectors, including those involved in home education, special schools and pupil referral units.

Click here to access a range of online professional learning sessions from a range of areas.

Geographical Assiocation

FREE CPD VIDEO SUPPORT from @The_GA committee EY and Primary.

Click here to find out more.

LGFL School Staff Training 

LGfL in school support, training and conference events are integral parts of the LGfL Energise curriculum service provided at no extra charge for schools.

Click here to see the training opportunities that are on offer.

Free short online course: Learning for a Sustainable Future

Join a personal and professional global learning journey towards a sustainable future. What on Earth could be more important?

Click here to find out more.

Becoming a Google Certified Coach

A Google Certified Coach is someone who is :

→ Eager to support educators

→ Wanting to drive impactful technology into classrooms

→ Looking to learn research-proven strategies & skills

Does this sound like you? 

Click here to find out more.

On-demand training at your fingertips

View the Google on-demand series of webinars designed to help schools and educators in the UK and Ireland get the most out of Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks.

Whether you are an educator, Senior Leadership or IT Administrator you can find a session to suit you. 

Click here to find out more.

Adobe Professional Development Courses

Find out all about the free professional learning opportunities on offer from Adobe.

Creativity for all

Adobe Creative Cloud Express in the Classroom

Engaging Video Projects in the Classroom

and many more...

Click here to find out more.

Free online professional development webinars for educators

Oxford University Press has a range of digital webinars to help you continue your professional development online. You can find links to recordings of previously-held webinars, as well as register your interest for upcoming sessions. The recorded webinars are available to watch on demand via Brainshark and you will receive a CPD certificate after watching each one.

Click here to find out more.

Financial Education - Free Online Teacher Training

Complete a free online course, in your own time and at your own speed…

The engaging eLearning courses are self-paced and take between 1.5-2.5 hours to complete.  Along the way you will:

• Learn how financial education can be made real and relevant to the young people you work with

• See where financial education most effectively fits within your curriculum

• Discover key tools to assist in the development of financial education

• Find out how to access further support and resources to aid financial education delivery

• Develop a financial education Action Plan for your own

Click here to find out more.

Developing Reading for Pleasure

Join the Open Learn FREE Developing Reading for Pleasure  badged online course.

Developing the skill to read and the will to read are interrelated, however, this course focuses on the latter; it is an exploration of Reading for Pleasure and its significance for children’s lives and development. You will consider current research, debates and challenges that impact on children’s reading and gain knowledge and strategies to help you promote reader engagement across schools, homes and communities.

Click here to find out more.

Online PE CPD for Teachers

England Football's Online PE CPD for Teachers course is designed to increase confidence in the delivery of engaging, inclusive, high-quality Physical Education lessons through the invasion game of football.

Click here to find out more.

Free Anti-Bullying CPD online training

The following online training courses are available: 

• What is bullying? 

• Bullying and the Law 

• Bullying and SEN/disability 

• 10 principles to reduce bullying

• Preventing bullying

• Responding to bullying

• Cyberbullying (Online bullying)

• Young Carers and Bullying 

• Looked After Children and Bullying

• Mental Health and Bullying

• Sexual Bullying

• Bullying and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller young people 

Click here to find out more.

Are you following @LEOtraining5 on Twitter yet?

If you would like to stay up to date on all things training at LEO Academy Trust and beyond then make sure you follow @LEOtraining5 on Twitter.

• Get notified when new PL videos are added to the LEO YouTube page.

• Receive reminders of upcoming courses and events.

• Keep up to date with what is happening at LEO training events as and when they are taking place.

• Explore other PL opportunities on offer outside of the Trust.

Click here to to visit the page now.