“The beautiful rests on the foundation of the necessary” – R.W. Emerson
The development of the LeapEd Core Series (LCS) was a long and sometimes fraught process, which ran from early 2018 till the end of 2019. Whilst the foundation series of the programme was built upon the learnings from the Trust Schools Programme (TSP), the intermediate series became its own, brand new, and much more varied programme, with information taken from best practices, current theories of education, and the personal expertise of the development team. This dynamic and diverse group of people had a combined total of almost 100 years worth of teaching and learning experience.
The struggle is part of the journey
From a simple concept, the LCS programme continued to grow in scope and became a blended programme, incorporating 3 days of training, an online component to support in-school tasks, practical teaching and learning strategies, hands-on experiential learning sessions, micro-teaching workshops, resource building for in-school sharing sessions, and a one-day in-school support visit by a member of the LeapEd Support Team to help school staff make the most of what they have learned during the course.
Quotables
According to the programme’s originator, Gary Husler, “the hope for this programme is that the offerings really make an impact by setting in motion transformation initiatives across Malaysia and it is recognised for its flexibility and adaptability to any school improvement project”.
Fellow writers and developers, Bow Martin and Sherry Tang gave their views, respectively, “the LeapEd Core Series is a synthesis of our prior knowledge and research from around the world. Participants are able to bring this information together in useable and user-friendly ‘chunks’ which can then be incorporated, one step at a time, in their own classrooms, even if they aren’t part of the wider Trust Schools network”, and “our ultimate goal is to impact student outcomes; this can only be done by enhancing the abilities of those tasked with their education and well-being – their teachers”.
Look back to move forward
With the workload for the LCS programme becoming greater, two new members joined the team – Hayley Trenchard and Anu Thiruselvam. Hayley worked closely with Sherry to complete the Middle Leaders Intermediate series, while Anu worked alongside Bow to ensure the Senior Leaders Intermediate elements were completed to schedule. All the hard work and effort pays off every time a new group of participants enters a training room and hears the statement, “Hello, and welcome to the LeapEd Core Series programme”,