375 Professional Development courses in Leeds

This workshop outlines strategies for making sure that learning takes place and that pupils in non-association independent schools make progress in the limited time they have.

This session is for those who find themselves teaching even though they have not gone through teacher training. It is designed to give you the basic tools you need to begin delivering to ensure that learning takes place.

Are you looking to create the perfect business strategy to put you higher than your competitors? Are you tired of not hitting your strategic objectives? If your answers to above questions are 'yes', this course helps you a lot.    What you will learn: To build your own ‘blue ocean strategy’ to avoid fierce competition & price wars. To understand strategy process and strategy mapping. To appropriately position your company in the marketplace. To make the competition irrelevant.   How you will benefit from this workshop: You will gain key insights into the strategy articulation process. We help you develop your leadership skills with some practice. You will learn how to use the Balanced scorecard to map your strategy. You will learn how effective your current differentiation is and how to improve that.

Overview Cyber Security plays an important role in every business as it encompasses everything that relates to protecting sensitive data, personal information, intellectual property, data, and governmental and industry information systems from theft and damage attempted by criminals and adversaries. This course is designed to understand and gain practical skills to plan, deliver and monitor IT/cyber security to internal and external clients understanding a complete, knowledge in the areas of IT policies, Security-Operational-Run-Book, security/penetration testing, ethical hacking and black hat hacking including understanding the basics of Kali Operating System and its tools and techniques. It will also cover WiFi security, Website security, human factors, cyber forensics, and cyber security team management, including all other areas in relation to Cyber Security.

Overview Financial Accounting and reporting play a very important role within the organization and its stakeholders. This course is designed to analyze the functions of financial reporting in communication and its effects on decision-making processes or managerial decisions. It will highlight the accounting and financial standards-setting process and its implication on the organization globally. Financial accounting and reporting discuss how accountants act as processors and purveyors of information for decision-making and the needs of those who use accounting information. It also looks at the role performed by accountants and notes the need to be aware of relevant regulatory and conceptual frameworks. 

Overview Objective Understanding the Importance of Business Analysis Model Determining various techniques of Process Modelling Understanding the scope of modelling Efficiently mapping the business landscape Analysing the enterprise structure How to avoid project failures. Learning efficient skills of being a successful business analyst. Understand and document various techniques for the organization delivers value. Successful project conversion Building team, changing the organization and overcoming resistance. Creating an effective Business Case.

Overview Networking has become a crucial factor in the modern workplace. It is the most effective method of developing your business or career and is a key component of your personal brand. This one day course will teach you how to be able to build strong business relationships, develop a level of personal credibility and increase your network of contacts in order to enhance your visibility and create opportunities for yourself and your organisation. Description This training course will help your participants build a professional reputation and develop a network of connections through the two key methods available to them; face-to-face and online. Attendees will discover how to effectively combine these two approaches and create a strategy for networking success that will generate their own community and actively grow their personal network. This will result in an improved performance in their approach to networking and consequently provide opportunities and prospects that will increase their business success. The training provides them with the tools and techniques to both plan a successful, strategic approach to networking and develop their personal communication skills, which will ensure they build effective business relationships. Topics covered: Why Network? – Establishing the importance of networking with some shocking statistics and an activity that defines the importance of networking to the individual. This is followed by some insight into the key aims of a networking strategy, what puts people off, as well as some personal revelations about networking. Increase Your Business Presence – Looking at the components of a strong business presence, including; credibility, personal brand, visibility and social capital. Developing a Networkers Attitude – An exercise that clarifies the perfect attitudes and behaviours of great networkers and comparing the participants against this. Thus identifying areas for development. Face to Face Networking – An overview and insight into the main types of face to face networking opportunities available with the benefits and pitfalls of each. Online Networking – An overview of the different social media and online networking tools and how to get the best out of them. Includes; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and online forums. Communication Skills for Networking Success – Ensuring a good first impression, creating an opening sound bite and writing an online profile that promotes and engages. Developing a Conversation – Building on the opening sound bite and developing a conversation through good questioning techniques and following a selection of key networking rules. Including an activity to test and practice the skills. Working a Room – A fun activity that embeds and develops learning while encouraging practice and communication. This activity covers 10 of the main skills required to work a room. Breaking into a Group – Identifying body language to spot when a group or pair is open to new people entering the conversation or would rather not encourage participation. Knowing how to break into a group, what to say and how to remain professional. Exiting a Conversation – Developing some techniques to extricate oneself from a conversation without causing embarrassment or rudeness. The Follow-Up – Using a structure to identify the most important contacts created and establishing when and how to follow up with each group. Includes example follow-up email and a chance to develop their own. Creating a Network Plan – Participants are provided with a networking action plan to review and complete. This sets them on the journey of developing their networking skills and ensures they have a strategy and goals to target. Who should attend Anyone who is looking to improve their networking performance, or the networking performance of a management or sales team. Requirements for Attendees No pre-requisites required.

Overview This one day Building Better Work Habits training course has been developed for everyone in your organisation who may struggle with their own personal effectiveness. They may not have control of their own workload or blame others as to why they’re not achieving certain tasks and projects. Alternatively, it might be that high performers want to understand how they can organise themselves in a new way to give themselves more stretch in their roles. The training course will help the learners build self-awareness and will highlight the important parts of working smarter to achieve end goals. Description We are all busy, and sometimes it seems we do not have enough hours in the day to complete deadlines and projects. It can then eat into our home life, meaning we often end up stressed, or in worst-case scenarios, unwell (both physically and mentally). The reason behind this is often how we work day to day, as opposed to others giving us work at the last minute. These training course materials have been designed to help your participants work more effectively for the long term. This isn’t about how to manage a diary or emails, but rather look closely to see what are the blockers which get in the way of success. These small changes in day to day work will have a dramatic impact in both productivity and personal effectiveness. Topics covered: Productivity: the science bit – A chance to explore what we mean by being productive and how that helps us build better work habits, as well as the opportunity to look at some of the science behind myths and bad habits we’ve probably already formed. Includes a link to a YouTube video. Procrastination, why put off to tomorrow what we can do today! – Participants will explore what we procrastinate about, how we procrastinate in our own lives, and what we can do about it! Eat That Frog – An introduction to Brian Tracy’s book “Eat that frog” and how it can help us improve our working habits. Includes a link to a YouTube video. Eat That Frog: Thinking on Paper – A chance to put into practice some of Brian Tracy’s methods and how to use them in our real lives Eat That Frog: Rocks, Pebbles and Sand – Taking our goal setting further, we explore Covey’s methodology around prioritising our tasks. Eat That Frog: The Pareto Principle – The final part of the “Eat that Frog” section looks at how effective we in terms of how we spend our day Prioritising: how do we spend our day? – Participants explore how proactive they are, and what the danger might be in letting a situation rule their time Prioritising: The Priority Matrix – Taking the Rock, Pebbles and Sand methodology further, participants explore what truly is urgent and what is important in our day to day Prioritising: Company Performance Tensions – We may know what our own personal objectives are, however, our business objectives have certain tensions that could impact these. How can we balance these two different objectives to ensure we’re successful day to day? What’s my mindset? – Sometimes we can get in the way of our own successes and plans due to our mindset; utilising Carol Dweck’s work, it is a chance to reflect on our own mindsets when we’re building new work habits. Includes a link to a YouTube video. What’s my mindset? Energy Cycles – Our energy can impact our mindset and how productive we are. A chance to look at what gives us energy, and how we can work more effectively depending on where our energy levels might be Who should attend Anyone interested in understanding in being more effective at work. Requirements for Attendees None.

Overview This one day course covers the basics of brainstorming and then goes on to look at a number of different yet highly effective techniques that can be employed. Description Brainstorming is probably the most well known and most widely used method for bringing groups of people together to generate ideas about an issue or problem. This is because it’s a good way to gather a lot of ideas very quickly. It is also a great way of bringing people together and helping to build them as a team. Just imagine the effect on the team and its morale if ideas that they generate are actually used. There is no doubt that people are more likely to buy into the ideas that they came up with themselves. Although brainstorming is widely used for decision-making, it is not always handled very well. If that is the case, it can have the opposite effect to the one that is intended. Rather than creating ideas it can stifle them and rather than motivating people it demotivates them. This highly interactive course will help learners to make the most of brainstorming sessions and also provides alternative techniques to enliven any session that is beginning to flag. Topics covered: What is Brainstorming? – A discussion to help participants understand what brainstorming is, and what it involves. Brainstorming rules – A quick look at the very limited rules suggested by Alex Osborn who is generally credited with being the inventor of brainstorming. Preparation – Although many brainstorming sessions take place on the spur of the moment they all require some preparation. We look at the importance of defining the purpose of the session, selecting the right participants, and then briefing them properly. Storm and Floods – This is an activity that we re-visit on several occasions to take participants through the whole brainstorming process and to give them plenty of practice. The Three R’s of Facilitation – The three R’s take you through the essential elements of facilitating an effective brainstorming session. Closing the Session – Effective closing of the brainstorm may be just as important as the session itself. We look at the essential elements that the facilitator needs to cover. Clarify and Nurture – Learners discover the importance of ensuring that all ideas that are unclear are clarified and that ideas are nurtured. They also learn what this involves practically. Alternative Techniques – There are many ways to enliven a flagging brainstorming session, provide a fresh approach or simply build on initial ideas. The learners are introduced to some of the most important of these. Brainstorming Scenarios – Learners work through up to 6 scenarios so that they can practice the alternative techniques covered during the programme. Who should attend Anyone who facilitates or takes part in brainstorming sessions, or wants to work with organisational teams to develop their problem-solving abilities. Requirements for Attendees None.

Overview This course sets out to develop attendee’s skills in understanding their own body language as well as being able to read the body language of others. If we can learn to identify and appreciate non-verbal clues, we can begin to improve our communication as a whole. This use of body language skills could impact situations such as; sales visits, interviews, presentations and normal day-to-day interactions where body language plays a part. Description Effective communication skills are critical in the development of relationships between people and although verbal communication plays a large part in this, studies have shown that a proportionate amount of our message comes from not what we say, but very often the non-verbal communication behind the message. Therefore, it is clear that body language is an important, influential aspect of communication and understanding how it works is essential in the development of your personal communication skills. Topics covered: Core Principles and the Five C’s – Exploring the subconscious effects of body language and setting the scene by ensuring participants appreciate the rules to interpreting body language. Reading Body Language – Gestures – An activity that helps participants realise the power of body language and how important it is to communication. Arm Barriers – Understanding the different arm barrier gestures and crossed arm positions and what each means. Palm and Handshake Gestures – Discussing the different handshakes and palm actions, what they mean and how they are applied in real life. Includes activities that test the theory. Hand and Thumb Gestures – A review of these different gestures and what they mean. Hand to Face Gestures…or… How to Spot a Liar! – An exploration of different gestures that involve the hand moving to the face. Identifying how to spot body language that signifies lying and what to watch out for. Chin and Cheek Gestures – An activity that helps participants understand the different chin and cheek gestures and how to interpret this body language. Eye Signals – A review of pupil dilation, directed gazes and eye accessing cues in order to fully understand how eyes provide body language clues. Matching & Mirroring – Looking at the technique of building rapport and developing relationships through careful observation of body language. Bringing it all Together – An activity that allows participants to embed their learning and realise how much they now understand and appreciate body language and its effect on communication. Who should attend Anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of their own body language, and that of others. Requirements for Attendees None.