Additional training days/Staff Professional Development Days in 2027/2028

Like many schools and trusts across the country, we are increasing the number of staff training and professional development days during the year from 2027/28. 

Over recent years, the volume of statutory, safeguarding, compliance and professional training that schools are required to complete has increased significantly. This means that the traditional number of training days is no longer sufficient.  

The coming years will also bring substantial national reforms on top of routine training and school development activity. These reforms include wholesale changes to the primary and secondary curricula generally, to GCSE qualifications and assessments, and to the provision for pupils with special educational needs. Schools will need to invest significant additional time responding to and planning for these changes. We will dedicate training days to working collaboratively across Anglian Learning, to allow us to respond to these reforms more efficiently than would be possible as individual schools.  

The additional days also form part of our commitment to being an excellent employer. High-quality professional development is one of the most important factors in attracting, developing and retaining talented staff. At a time when schools nationally and locally continue to face recruitment and retention challenges, many trusts and schools are developing innovative approaches to term dates, professional learning, training days and staff benefits. Providing strong professional development opportunities through our training days is part of our strategy to recruit and retain excellent colleagues.  

We appreciate that additional training days/professional development days can create inconvenience for families. We have chosen dates that are intended to minimise that inconvenience and want to assure you that these days will form a crucial part of our staff training and school development programmes, for the benefit of all pupils.