Lime Staff Training
Empowering Your Growth: Professional Development at Lime Trust
At Lime Trust, we are deeply committed to investing in our people. Whether you are just beginning your career or taking the next step into leadership, our comprehensive professional development offer ensures you are supported, challenged, and inspired to thrive.
Personalised Growth & Career Pathways
- Annual Professional Development Conversations: Every member of staff engages in a dedicated yearly professional development coaching conversation to reflect on goals, identify strengths, and map out personalised growth.
- Lime Trust Career Pathways Map: Progression isn’t one-size-fits-all. Our clear Career Pathways Map illustrates progression opportunities across all roles within the Trust, helping you navigate your individual journey.
A Seamless Golden Thread of Development
- ITT to ECT to NPQ Continuum: In partnership with Ambition Institute, we deliver a seamless golden thread of professional learning spanning Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Early Career Teacher Programme (ECTP), and National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). This ensures consistent shared language and evidence-based pedagogical approaches at every stage.
- Tailored Progression: Our structured pathways support you from your initial training right through to refining your expertise as an established teacher, tailored directly to your individual career progression and specialist interests.
Trust-Wide Collaboration & Learning
- Annual All-Staff Conference: Once a year, our entire Trust comes together under one roof. It’s an invaluable opportunity to collaborate, share best practice, and build strong professional connections across all our schools.
- Trust-Wide Hubs: Staff participate in a variety of specialist Trust-wide Hubs that meet regularly throughout the year. Led by Trust senior leaders, these collaborative spaces facilitate the seamless sharing of knowledge, innovation, and practical expertise.
- Collaborative Planning Days: On top of your standard PPA time, primary and special school teachers benefit from termly collaborative planning days. Working alongside peers across all Trust schools and supported by our dedicated School Improvement Team, you’ll co-create innovative, high-impact lessons that drive progress and help every learner reach their full potential.
- Shared Expertise & Evidence-Informed Curriculum: Our fully developed, evidence-informed curriculum for primary and special education draws upon the collective expertise of our staff, bridging primary and specialist pedagogy to deliver the best outcomes for every learner.
Flexible School Improvement & Strategic Partnerships
- Aligned Autonomy: We believe in a school improvement model built on aligned autonomy. This delivers a robust, high-quality framework while giving schools the flexibility needed to tailor curriculum delivery to the bespoke needs of their learners.
- Extensive External Partnerships: We collaborate with a range of respected, high-quality professional development providers nationally, ranging from universities, local colleges, and apprenticeship providers to national education research charities, ensuring our staff access cutting-edge educational insights and qualifications.
- On-Demand & Role-Specific CPD: All staff receive access to The National College, a leading online CPD platform, alongside tailored, role-specific training to support continuous learning.
Initial Teacher Training (ITT)
- Lime Trust Teacher Training Programme: In partnership with Ambition Institute, we run our own high-quality ITT programme to train the next generation of primary and special school teachers. Trainees achieve a Primary PGCE with QTS, accredited by Liverpool Hope University.
- Specialist SEND Expertise: Our ITT curriculum embeds a dedicated thread of SEND-specific sessions led by experts across our special schools. This equips every trainee with the confidence and skills to teach any learners across any learning pathways.
- Accelerated Progress Through Practice: The programme utilises instructional coaching and deliberate practice to rapidly build classroom confidence, refine teaching techniques, and accelerate trainee progress.
- Diverse Placement Experiences: Trainees gain rich experience across different key stages and complete additional placement days, including visits to other schools, to explore key stage transitions and broaden their understanding of learner pathways.
- Personalised Placement Experiences: Through our extensive network of mainstream and special schools, trainees benefit from a range of placement experiences tailored to their individual development needs, interests and career aspirations. This breadth of experience enables trainees to work across different settings, phases and learner pathways, developing the adaptability and expertise needed to thrive in inclusive classrooms.
For any training queries, please contact Michaela Philpot – Head of Professional Development.
Read About Our Staff Success & Leadership Insights
Real Voices: School Improvement Lead
"Lime Trust provide a vast range of CPD opportunities, both internal and external. The majority of CPD across the Trust aligns to the Golden Thread to School Improvement..."
“We use a variety of schemes and approaches that are research led and evidence informed, all of which provide CPD and targeted support at all levels to reinforce the Trust’s pedagogical principles.
These pedagogical principles are cemented further through internal CPD and support through Trust planning days and leadership hubs, which provide opportunities for explicit modelling of core approaches and opportunities for staff to share practice and expertise.
We pride ourselves, as a Trust, on opportunities to learn from colleagues both within the organisation and beyond. Our external partnerships enable us to be outward facing and learn from professionals beyond the Trust through CPD and visits to other Schools and Trusts.
Our internal systems enable us to share expertise, practice and learning in a timely manner.”
Real Voices: Headteacher
"My NPQ has had a significant impact on my leadership practice. It equipped me with a shared language for school improvement that has helped unite staff around a common vision, sharpen our improvement planning and drive meaningful change across the school."
Real Voices: Deputy Headteacher
"The professional development opportunities provided by Lime Trust have been instrumental in improving standards in our school. The Trust's research-informed approach, combined with collaborative planning and leadership networks, has helped us establish consistent pedagogical practices, strengthen teaching quality and accelerate progress for our pupils."
Real Voices: Early Career Teacher
"My journey from TA to teacher within Lime Trust has been exceptionally positive. The structure of the ITT programme and the supportive environment enabled me to step into independent teaching within just a few weeks. My mentor's experience and support has been invaluable. Their constant guidance has strengthened my practice and accelerated my progress far beyond what I expected."
Real Voices: Teaching Assistant
"Throughout my apprenticeship course, I have significantly expanded my knowledge of SEND in Early Years and developed a deeper understanding of what effective inclusion looks like within primary school settings. With the support of the SENCo and SLT, I have been able to contribute to running two inclusion rooms, which has been both rewarding and professionally enriching."
Real Voices: Trainee Teacher
"Being part of the Lime Trust Teacher Training Programme has been a genuinely transformative journey, one of growth, discovery, and deep self reflection..."
“With the guidance, care, and support of my mentor, Induction Coordinator, our course facilitators, and the community of fellow trainees, I have learned more than I ever imagined about teaching, about children, and about who I am becoming as an educator. The programme sessions themselves have been powerful and genuinely transformative. Each session has stretched my thinking, strengthened my practice, and helped me understand not just what to teach, but why and how to teach with purpose and clarity.”