The Directors of Improvement Professional Community is a unique development network for Directors of Improvement, or equivalent roles, in school trusts.
The Professional Community provides support and development opportunities at a time of unprecedented change, through a blend of expert input on key improvement, facilitated discussion and networking. It is intended to build our knowledge and understanding of improvement across a group of schools and codify the best that is being thought and done in our sector.
The Community provides a safe and supportive environment in which to develop your understanding of some of the key challenges related to operational practice across a group of schools, access expertise from across the sector, and build a professional network.
CST's Professional Communities focus on the concept of ‘practice challenges’ and engage through:
As a member of the Directors of Improvement Professional Community, you will also gain exclusive access to our Hive platform.
CST Hive is a peer learning platform that connects you with a community of information, resources and support, that you can access anytime and anywhere. On the platform you'll find an ever-growing collection of resources, containing information about key knowledge areas needed in our profession, as well as a space to connect, learn and interact with your peers from across the country.
Membership of the community is inclusive for employees of member trusts as a benefit of CST membership. Join using the button below using your MyCST membership details.
Join our Directors of Improvement Professional CommunityRE is a statutory subject which must be taught to all pupils in all year groups in all schools (unless withdrawn by parents). Come along to find out about new curriculum developments in RE.
Religious education: current position and future directions
At this session, Unity Jones, Director of Network Advancement at AET will discuss how the trust is approaching cultural improvement through the lens of their initiative 'Project H'.
AET is a national network of 57 schools across the country, representing diverse communities and with distinct and individual school characteristics. Since 2022, the trust has been focused on pivoting from the financial turnaround that preceded the pandemic to educational improvement.
The session will talk through the challenges and opportunities of working at scale and in varied context, and how improvement at a network level is distinct from traditional school improvement approaches. You can read more about Project H in advance of the session here.
This session will break new ground by sharing for the first time the results of a study looking into how trust leaders think about school improvement. The research was carried out in 2022/2023 using the input of 35 participants drawn from CST’s Directors of Improvement community. The study reveals not only the specific improvement approaches/strategies participants considered to be most/least effective, but it also provides an insight into leaders’ underlying perspectives, showing there are fundamental differences in the way we think and communicate about school improvement. The study shines a light on some powerful concepts that might help trust leaders to reflect on their own practice.
This research started in the DoI community so it is only right you hear the findings first. Come along on 1 February and be a part of the conversation.
Many schools and trusts are thinking hard about how they can support teachers to navigate complex topics in the curriculum, such as those relating to empire, migration and belonging. This session is aimed to support you in this work and will be relevant to a range of subjects. It will involve an exploration of how a sustained form of professional development can support the teaching of a complex topic like the British Empire. We will consider a case study (drawn from the TIDE/ Runnymede Trust’s teacher fellowship programme) to illuminate and consider what forms of professional development might best support teachers and ultimately emphasise the importance of: the use of both academic scholarship and empirical evidence from classrooms; attention to teachers’ personal beliefs; and framework of a supportive forum that can facilitate dialogue. Consideration will be given to how knowledge is conceptualised as well as the role culture and interdisciplinary curriculum thinking might play in enabling learners.
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