ODST believes strongly in cultivating school environments where adults as well as children can flourish. We strive to nurture our dedicated and talented staff, who care passionately about children, and support them to develop their skills to deliver the best-possible education.

Supportive and inclusive culture that highly values staff

Staff wellbeing is central to each school's approach and championed strongly by our central team. We support school leaders to ensure safe and inclusive working environments, through culture and leadership as well as policies and processes. Every school has a named adviser within both the ODST HR and School Improvement teams should they need expert support or just a listening ear. 

We pay close attention to staff feedback, ​​​​and the latest evidence-based thinking in staff development, tailoring practices such as appraisals to reflect what is best for our people and to get the best out of them. 

As a large but close-knit family of schools, ODST also offers a positive, supportive staff community in which to meet, collaborate and learn with peers across schools, whether that's to share professional expertise or gain support in dealing with a specific problem. 

Career development to nuture a high-performing workforce

We nuture and support our people, to ensure they develop and grow their career and skills in a meaningful way. We work hard to provide career development opportunities and aim to build a pipeline of talented people, who can step up into roles in the future. We are comitted to supporting development at all levels, from support staff to senior leaders, and offer a multitude of formal and informal development pathways, such as apprenticeships, NPQs, coaching, in-house CPD and secondments. 

ODST's large network of schools is rich in career opportunities. Our professional networks for roles such as subject leaders, SENCos, EYFS leads, offer regular chances to meet and learn alongside peers, take part in research or innovative projects, or even lead on these areas of work across the trust.

We are committed to recruiting from within our internal talent pool, alongside bringing in excellent new staff where needed, and our central team can support school leaders and governing bodies with finding the right people and the recruitment process.

‘School leaders rate the training provided by the Trust highly… the training that they and their staff have benefited from would have been otherwise out of their reach.’

^{Ofsted Summary Evaluation of ODST}