Teaching and Learning

Inspirational, highly effective teaching and learning is our number one priority at Uckfield.

We invest significantly in the training and development of all of our teaching and support staff and believe in the almost limitless capacity for everyone to achieve great things.  Teachers at Uckfield are all ‘Teaching and Learning Activists’ - committed to their own and each other’s ongoing professional development and learning.

We also believe that truly great teaching is that which improves students’ progress.  Our evidence-informed approach to teaching and learning helps us identify what works best in the classroom.   We believe that you cannot just wish teachers and students to be better – you have to create the conditions for them to grow and so a huge part of our culture is our focus on collaborative professional learning and development for our staff, in order that they can teach and support our students as effectively as possible.

Our comprehensive professional development programme underpins the annual College Development Plan and focuses on deliberate practice and research-informed guidance  through our framework for excellent teaching, Uckfield Excellence.

There is a strong collegiate and collaborative professional development culture between staff involving sharing of best practice and support of one another.  Every week on a Monday staff participate in ‘Joint Professional Learning’ time for 75 minutes, where they plan, reflect and create together, usually in subject-specific teams, all focused on developing the very best provision for students. There is also a programme of PLD Inquiry, which involves teaching staff focusing on an area of pedagogy they wish to improve, and being supported in that through group coaching and high quality materials.

As a result of this investment, teaching and learning at the College is consistently evaluated as excellent, but we are never complacent and always striving to innovate and improve. 

Please see our Teaching & Learning Policy for further information.