Feature Approaches to professional development

APPROACHES TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

A shift in thinking means teachers and leaders now view CPD differently, says Drew Thomson, Deputy Head Academic and a Teacher of Physics.

Professional development in England has undergone a rapid transformation in the last decade or so, coinciding with a general drive within education for greater emphasis on evidence-informed teaching and learning strategies. In 2016, the Department for Education CPD Expert Group provided the ‘Standard for teachers’ professional development’ on implementing good professional development, which, along with organisations like the Teacher Development Trust, has helped shape the direction of travel.

The best schools have moved away from the traditional approach of attending some external courses each year in the vain hope that it would bring about better outcomes for our pupils. These schools, with STAHS included, instead favour a blend of internally-run opportunities, such as our Book Club, Electives, Enquiry Questions and Departmental CPD sessions, with carefully chosen external professional development. These decisions align with the key ideas in the CPD Expert Group’s report, particularly that professional development should have a clear focus on improving and evaluating pupil outcomes, underpinned by robust evidence and expertise, and should be sustained over time.

There remain appealing options for external CPD, as there are elements that we cannot easily replicate internally, such as the Chartered College’s CTeach Programme and some of the exam board courses. The shift in CPD thinking means that teachers and leaders in schools ask better questions about the worthiness of courses: whether a day in London on ‘Differentiation’ for £400 is likely to lead to better pupil outcomes versus our own CPD programmes or building something bespoke from our talented pool of superb teachers. There is a lot to be said about the informal side of professional development. At STAHS we benefit from an extensive CPD Library that is constantly expanding as teachers provide recommendations. Picking out a book related to an area of your own development gives you a route to learn and apply that learning, which can be more flexible than a timetabled programme. Most education books are set up in such a way that a chapter may be all you need to get going, rather than reading from cover to cover. Following other teachers and organisations on Twitter can allow you to keep abreast of the latest educational thinking and can lead to osmosis of fantastic ideas as you read through your feed. Everything from visiting other schools, to networking either locally or in subject-specific groups, can help by allowing you to ask questions of others in the same position as you. I would have struggled to survive through COVID without my HMC cluster group of Deputy Heads!

There is more to do though. The only explicit expectation of teachers comes in the Teachers’ Standards, where we are expected to ‘take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development’. It doesn’t become any more specific in the Ofsted and ISI frameworks. All teachers know they have areas they can improve upon, and many countries expect and provide funding and time for teachers to spend a specified number of hours per year on their professional development. According to the Wellcome-commissioned report 'The cost of high quality professional development for teachers in England', 35 hours of CPD time per year would require an increase of less than 1% to the total schools budget. The best professional development takes place when it is prioritised by school leadership, and improved Department for Education funding and explicit expectations would be an important way to help schools prioritise CPD in the most effective ways.