• STEP is one of only 87 Teaching School Hubs announced in February 2021 by The Department for Education. It is based at one of our secondary schools, The Priory School.
• STEP works in partnership with local schools to support initial teacher training; deliver the new Early Career Framework for new Teachers and their mentors and act as an appropriate body under the new statutory changes.
• STEP is an inclusive partnership comprising  Salop Teaching Partnership (STP), The Alliance of Leading Learning (ALL)  Shropshire Primary Partnership (SPP) and Severn Training and Schools Alliance (STSA) representing all phases and contexts, including Special and Alternative Provisions, across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.
• Step offer teacher training to become an Early Years, Primary or secondary teacher. They work with the University of Chester to provide high quality teacher training, locally delivered by outstanding practitioners and with placements in successful and outstanding local schools across Shropshire & Telford and Wrekin.
• STEP works to deliver the Early Career Development Programme which delivers high-quality professional development and support to all teachers in the first 2 years of their careers, with the aim of retaining high quality practitioners.
• In order to find out more about Initial Teacher Training and support provided to any Early Career teachers who work for schools within our trust, please click on the following link: Shropshire and Telford Education Partnership – Home (stepwm2.co.uk)

Our Director of Inclusion, Sadie Howson, leads safeguarding across the trust.  Training available to our trust schools focuses on the following key areas:

• Child Protection Training for all staff
• Filtering and Monitoring training
• E safety training
• Training on use of Every, for all school SCRs.

Sadie also runs half termly safeguarding network groups for all our school’s Designated Safeguarding Leads, a chance to collaborate and share good practice.

Our Director of Inclusion, Sadie Howson, leads SEND across the trust.  Training available to our trust schools focuses to the following key areas:

• Supporting schools with legal paperwork and compliance
• Supporting SEMH needs within schools
• Supporting pupils with neurodivergence
• Attachment training
• Adaptive teaching 

Sadie also runs half termly SEND network groups for all our SENDCOs, a chance to collaborate and share good practice.

We are passionate about ensuring that all staff have the opportunity to develop and pursue their ambition to progress in their careers.   Our external partnerships allow us to offer a broad range of development opportunities including National Professional Qualifications, and we actively encourage middle, senior and head teachers to take part in courses such as: NPQSL, NPQH, NPQEL, to further develop their skills and knowledge and, of course to develop networks and further collaborate both inside and outside our trust.​

In addition, we offer our aspiring leaders our own leadership programme, The Aspire Programme. This is underpinned by our Trust values and is an exciting, high-level programme for both support staff and teaching staff, which aims to bring individuals together, from across the Trust, to collaborate and grow together. Specialists in leadership and associated subjects facilitate this dynamic programme, where action learning is a strong component. The skills and characteristics developed by participants on this programme is transferable back into their teams and departments to drive improvement and the careers of our participants can be enhanced as a result of attending the programme.

At The 3-18 Education Trust, our Trust Improvement Consultants have developed a bank of training courses to support our schools to develop in key areas.​

These consultants are also able to provide bespoke support to individual schools by providing face to face visits, reviews, carrying out observations and supporting departments to create action plans.​

Please watch the following video to find out more about our team of consultants:

Here at the 3 – 18 Education Trust, we offer an extensive coaching programme in order to develop and assist our senior leaders to achieve specific personal or professional goals by providing training, guidance, challenge and support.  Our programme offers training in how to be a coach within schools and also provides individuals with regular coaching sessions to support them to achieve their goals and be part of a high performing team.  ​

As part of this programme, our headteachers and our central team also take part in 360 reviews, focusing on strengths and development areas by providing each other with high quality, detailed feedback which is fed back via a coaching session.

Although governance is a voluntary position, training is carried out to fulfil statutory requirements.  We provide training to Governors in the following key areas via our online learning platform, National College:​

• Safeguarding, including Online Safety​
• ​Cyber Security
• ​Induction for new governors

Depending on the appointed link role within governance of the trust training can include:​

• Effective financial governance
• Equality, diversity and inclusion​
• Progress and attainment: using data to improve educational outcomes​
• Governance of SEND provision​
• Reviewing suspensions and permanent exclusions​
• Stakeholder engagement​
• Governance of environmental sustainability

We actively engage with the Apprenticeship Levy, which provides our Trust with a powerful opportunity to invest in talent development with our current workforce and which also provides the opportunity to bring in fresh talent.​

Through the levy, we are able to fully fund professional qualifications for all our staff; ranging from diplomas, through to professional qualifications, including both at degree and masters level. This not only fills any skills gaps but provides our staff with personal development opportunities within their profession.​

The levy empowers us to choose which apprenticeships to offer, how many, and when. It’s a strategic investment in our workforce’s growth and success

At The 3-18 Education Trust, we offer a wide range of HR training courses, led by our HR team.  These courses cover areas such as:​

• Safer Recruitment​
• Every training​
• Induction​
• Probation​
• Performance Management​
• Grievance​
• Disciplinary​
• Managing Sickness​
• Managing Conflict​
• Stress Awareness​
• Menopause Awareness​
• Embracing Flexible Working​
• Equality and Diversity

At The 3-18 Education Trust, we offer a wide range of IT training courses, led by our IT team and service providers.  These courses cover areas such as​

• Office 365​
• SharePoint​
• Data Protection​
• Cyber Security​
• Freedom of information​
• Subject Access Requests​
• Data retention​
• Breach notification​
• Barracuda Spam release​
• Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways

Training and support is provided from our Finance Team to our School Business Managers.  Our training and support focuses on the following key areas:

• SBM Finance Training
• Monthly Accounts​
• School Fund​
• Budget Monitoring​
• Budget Setting​

Training for our Finance Assistant is also provided in the following areas:​

• School Fund (Quickbooks)​
• Purchase Ordering​
• Invoice coding and processing

Health and Safety training is provided to all staff via the National College platform.  Members of the site team in all our schools will carry out more in depth Health and Safety training (e.g. Manual Handling, COSHH training) via the National College.

Support in the use of Every Compliance, our online tool for monitoring Health and Safety compliance, will be provided to our School Business Managers from the central team.

School Business Managers will be provided with the necessary Health and Safety training.