What: An opportunity to meet with a coach regularly over a 3-6 month period to focus on a particular area of learning or development. The Professional Learning and Development team identifies an appropriate coach for you, designed to best meet your needs. Together, you map a coaching journey to support your goals.

Who: All administration and support staff on each campus, in consultation with your line manager.

How: Email Claire Firat to commence the process.

What: 3 times a year,  In-house Staff PD Fests provide admin and support staff with focused learning together. The programme is planned by the PL team, aligned with strategic goals and in response to community requests.

Who: All administration and support staff on each campus.

How: PD Fest programmes can be found on this Internal PL page of the website in the lead-up to the events. 

What: An education based coaching model designed to help educators think about and strengthen their classroom practice and collaboration with colleagues. 8 day programme held over a range of weekends. 

Who: Open to all on Dover and East with leaders particularly encouraged to attend. Currently approximately two thirds of staff at East have undertaken this programme.

How: New courses are advertised on the internal PL page. Please apply using the standard form.

ELT Cognitive Coaching

What: As an organisation, we seek to make learning integral to what we do in all respects.  We therefore support and applaud colleagues’ desires to undertake further study. As an acknowledgement of your commitment to your further learning, the College may award a contribution to your Bachelors or Masters level study up to half of the yearly cost up to a maximum of S$2000 per year. The contribution is a year-by-year allocation. You may therefore apply each year.

Who: In order to qualify, the study should be directly relevant to the staff member’s work area. In your request, you should explain how your study will benefit your current role and/or the College. The College, in turn, will make decisions based on your rationale, the support of your line manager, your performance record, your length of service, and of course your role.

How: The requests are invited each year in August/September for decisions in October/November.

What: Each year some teaching staff choose to pursue postgraduate study related to education or their role in our community.  In recognition of the hard work and expense that goes into this, and acknowledging the benefits to the school of your professional growth, we award up to a maximum of SGD $2000 per year for postgraduate study for teaching staff.

[The contribution from the College is limited to half of the yearly cost up to a maximum of S$2000 per year. The contribution is a year-by-year allocation.]

Who: The total sum ring fenced each year to support postgraduate study at Dover has ranged between S$10,000 – S$16,000. The sum is divided equally between applicants whose studies are eligible. In deciding which studies might be eligible for a contribution, the Professional Learning committee will consider the following questions:

1. What might be the direct or indirect impact on student learning of your study?
2. How might your study be relevant to the role you hold within the College?
3. To what extent does your study fit with the UWC mission and align with our 5 year plan?

How: If you are considering or committed to postgraduate study in the current academic year, please let the PL Committee know by using this form. Please express your interest by September 1 in the intended year of study.

Please note

• Any absence for study needs to be approved separately by your Principal, and cover costs in such rare cases are deducted from the award amount.
• The money awarded is reimbursed based on receipts in April and is not a payment upfront.
• The award can be applied for each year, but we cannot guarantee now that the amount will be the same in future years, so you should be aware of this as you plan the finances for your studies.
• PTCs are very expensive and we also already have a robust model for middle leadership with our bespoke Jansen model. This is not to say that we do not see the considerable value of PTCs for professional growth, but rather that it is difficult to justify automatically funding them for middle leaders.

What: As an organisation we seek to make learning integral to what we do in all respects.  We therefore applaud colleagues’ desire to undertake further study and will seek to support full-time and part-time teachers in this respect (always recognising that as for all PL requests, these are subject to funding limitations.  Allocations here are entirely at the discretion of the PL Committee).

If an application is approved,

for full-time staff the contribution from the College is limited to half of the yearly cost up to a maximum of S$2000 per year. The contribution is a year-by-year allocation.

for part-time staff, the contribution from the College is limited to half of the yearly cost up to a maximum of the pro-rata amount* per year. The contribution is a year-by-year allocation.

*The pro-rata amount is based on the number of teaching periods compare to the full time teaching load.

How: Each year we will ask staff to let us know if they are pursuing postgraduate study that they would like us to support. Expressions of interest for funding need to be received before the October break to be considered. You will receive email reminders. All successful applicants will receive an approval email from PL Committee. After receiving the approval email, applicants can send their expense claims to the relevant school Secretaries for relevant school Principals to approve the expenses before sending it to Finance Department to process your claims form.

Before submitting the expense claims, please note that you have to attach the following documents to your claim form,

• Post Grad Approval email sent by PL Committee.
• Receipt(s) for current school year
• Registration confirmation email from your Institute (which contains your name and the post grad course name)

In those cases where the programme of study is particularly aligned with College, Campus, School or Department development plans, the College may at its discretion make an alternative contribution, and may as a result ask that the study be focussed on specific areas.

What: A comprehensive framework of support – click here to see more.

Who: Administration and Support staff in consultation with their line managers

How: Different programmes have different application processes-  speak to PL&D to find out more.

British Council Singapore

What: Intensive contextualised 6 day training (in three blocks of 2 days) for middle leaders at Dover. This bespoke programme covers aspects of cognitive coaching, Adaptive schools, action research, leadership vs management and practical skills for leading effective meetings and developing teams. The aim is to build a culture of leadership for learning among the middle leaders. By learning together they forge a strong sense of collaboration – developed through the Action Research groups (ARGs) which continue to meet in between the sessions.

Who: approximately 20-30 Middle leaders each cohort. Each year a new batch of leaders are brought into the programme.

How: Advertised on the internal PL page. Discuss with your line manager and then apply to your Principal using the standard PL form. Selection is based on the context of your role and the campus strategy. This programme is over subscribed. If you are not successful the first year you apply we will try to enable you attend in a subsequent year.

Chris and Greg Jansen

What: East Campus provides a number of formal opportunities to develop the capacities and competencies of leadership.  Leadership can be seen as a set of behaviours that any community member can use to support a team, as well as more formal preparation for or enhancement of positional leadership.  We offer access to the Singapore International Schools Leadership programme with the Jansen brothers, and internal modules on influential leadership.

Who: all aspiring and current leaders

How: expression of interest forms are shared via email with all staff by the PL Committee to sign up.

What: College Connect is a personalised experiential training opportunity, designed to provide UWCSEA non-teaching colleagues and board members an opportunity to better understand and align with the student experience at UWCSEA through participating in it.

Who: All administration and support staff on each campus, & board members

How: Choose from a menu of opportunities, depending on your learning goals. Then contact the Professional Learning & Development team to coordinate on your behalf.

What: The PLP is the structure that guides our on-going professional learning programme and is based on the idea of empowering colleagues so that they have ownership of their learning and can match it to their needs in the light of strategic needs.    This is informed by the UWCSEA Teacher Standards and Leadership Standards.  

The Professional Learning Programme is College-wide with a common policy, IT platform and expectations and a broadly aligned process across the campuses.   

Who: Every member of staff including all leaders

Every year, every member of staff including all leaders, commit to professional learning goals. There are three recorded and scheduled coaching conversations with a mentor each year. A planning conversation in term one, an ongoing reflection in term two, and a final reflective conversation in term three.  This sits at the heart of individual teachers’ professional learning and can be aligned to applications for further professional learning. It is expected that the majority of individuals’ PLP goals would be aligned to team and campus plans, but seen through the lens of the individual’s immediate context.

The East PLP handbook is here.

The Dover PLP handbook is here

What: 2-3 times a year, PL days provide academic staff with focused learning together. The programme is planned by the PL committees on each campus and aligned with strategic goals.

Who: All academic staff on each campus.

How: PL days programmes can be found here for Dover and here for East. To request time allocation on the PL days please contact Ellie (Dover) or Stuart (East).

Dover PD Day

What: Pedagogical coaches across the school are able to provide support in helping academic staff develop their craft. We have digital literacy coaches, instructional, numeracy and literacy coaches, tech mentors, learning support coaches and EAL facilitators.

Who: Open to all

How: Please approach the coaches directly to ask for support.

Coach supporting colleague at Dover

What: A blended training course for those who accompany students on overseas trips, designed to be re-taken every two years. The course covers risk assessments, and policies, procedures and support systems in place within the school to support best practice in trip leadership.

Who: All trip leaders need to undertake Trip Awareness training every 2 years, but all staff accompanying students are encouraged to complete it.

How: The course is delivered online and takes approximately 60 minutes to complete.

For access to the course, contact Claire Firat. 

NZ trip

What: 4 times a year,  In-house Training Fests provide admin and support staff with focused learning together. The programme is planned by the PL team, aligned with strategic goals and in response to community requests.

Who: All administration and support staff on each campus.

How: Training Fest programmes can be found on this Internal PL page of the website in the lead-up to the events. 

What: College Connect is a personalised experiential training opportunity, designed to provide UWCSEA non-teaching colleagues and board members an opportunity to better understand and align with the student experience at UWCSEA through participating in it.

Who: All administration and support staff on each campus, & board members

How: Choose from a menu of opportunities, depending on your learning goals. Then contact the Professional Learning & Development team to coordinate on your behalf.