P2 Knowledge, skills, understanding
PHASE 2 - STAFF TRAININGSecuring Staff Knowledge, Skills and Understanding
Phase 2 starts with training led by EmpathyLab’s founders. A member of SLT, the Lead and key staff should attend. This gives the project a clear priority in the school, emphasizing the whole school approach.
Our training builds understanding of the Programme’s key ideas and pedagogical concepts. It acts as a springboard from which to launch the project to the whole school community.
TOP TIPS
- Share your proposed programme timeline and schedule so that teachers have an overview of the work ahead
- Collect key learning from the training and display in staff room to keep the ideas fresh in people’s minds. Or share on staff learning platforms
- Make sure ALL staff know they have a role to play in being an Empathic school
- Involve everyone in the cascaded training , especially Teaching Assistants
In total, there are between 8-10 hours of staff training.
There are comprehensive resources to support the delivery of this training.
It is organised into the following modules:
See
Staff Professional Development Programme Outline
for a further breakdown, and supporting resources.
Ideally, you would cover this training content in a whole school development day followed by ongoing, spread out CPD meetings.
However, we have designed things so you can decide your own schedule, and deliver the CPD modules flexibly.
Bear in mind this needs to be completed before Phase 3 and pupil base-lining.
TOP TIPS
- Clarity about empathy: because empathy is a common term, we encounter many assumptions/misconceptions. Including confusion between empathy, sympathy and kindness. It is vital that the adults involved are 100% confident about this and empathy’s three elements, with the teaching strategies needed for each
- Encourage staff to read and share their lightbulb moments. Maybe introduce an Empathy Expert slot in staff meetings where people share anything striking they’ve learnt about empathy; or an Empathy Insights board to post anything inspiring
- In secondary schools the working party’s role is vital in spreading the methodology to all subject areas. To impact on school/culture ethos this cannot be just an English or Wellbeing initiative
- Use the Staff Empathy Book Share resource to set up a staffroom borrowing collection. This could include the titles from the professional learning watching/listening resource plus examples of children’s literature from the Read for Empathy collections.