The start of the new academic year can be an exciting and refreshing time, not least because it enables managers to get their teeth into new members of staff and train them up in just the way they want them. New processes that old-timers have still to get the hang of can be 'baked in' from the start with new members of staff. This presents the ideal opportunity to bed in change and get the school working as you would like it to. For this reason alone induction is an important process, but done well it can also offer other significant benefits:
- it increases staff loyalty
- it reduces the likelihood of 'problems' further down the line
- it sends out good messages about professionalism and sound leadership
- it helps ensure that staff, particularly those new to the profession, go on to have happy and rewarding careers
At Oswestry, we run a comprehensive six-week induction programme for new staff in which all the key bases are covered. The programme ensures that inductees have a good understanding of all significant elements of the school's operations. To ensure that the training improves year-on-year it concludes with a questionnaire asking inductees what they got out of the process and how they think it could be further improved.
The timetable is posted here and gives a flavour of the sort of things that are covered. The induction booklet itself is posted here. Feel free to borrow and adapt as you see fit.