"Teachers able to teach, free from interruption and disturbance. Climate for Learning especially good. Saw overwhelmingly good behaviour. Pupils prepared to listen attentively and then work silently/independently as directed."
Chris Morris, National Leader of Education (March 2020)
Teaching and learning is the most important thing that we do. Everything else that goes on at Walton-le-Dale supports brilliant teaching and learning - we are well known for inclusion and for pastoral support, but the purpose of this is to enable all our students to learn in our classrooms, laboratories, theatre and sports facilities as well as to continue to learn independently at home. Development of teaching and learning is at the heart of our school improvement.
The core of our teaching and learning is our "Brilliant Teaching and Learning Toolkit" which you will find in our Teaching and Learning policy at the bottom of this page as well as on our Policies page. For the past 2 years we have been working on a whole-school "Brilliant Teaching and Learning in an Inclusive Classroom" project as part of our Inclusion Quality Mark Flagship Status.
Teaching and learning are closely integrated with our curriculum, which you will find described in detail on the website. Our professional development is also focused on improving the performance of every single teacher and you will find our commitment to professional development described here. During the pandemic we have developed effective remote learning, which again is described at this link here.
The best way to get an insight into teaching and learning at WLD is to read the weekly blog written by Rachel Long, our Assistant Headteacher in charge of Teaching and Learning - you will find all the posts here. We are always monitoring and evaluating what we do so that we can continue to improve - so please get in touch if you would like to talk to us about our approach to developing teaching and learning. It is the most important thing that we do.
