How is CPD received by different staff members?

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I am very fortunate to work in a school which has a very robust CPD programme for staff. The school is supported by being a research school and a teaching school hub. These elements feed into a culture of growth for all staff that aims to centre around wellbeing. However through research and interviews I now think we could improve on one aspect of this.

All staff are carefully guided through CPD provision that is tailored to them and their needs. The school starts the tailored CPD programme with a ‘market-place’ event which offers opportunities for staff to speak with specific experts and representatives from different CPD opportunities. These include the teaching school hub which runs subject specific networks and training programmes, the research school which offers webinars and face to face events distilling and analysing the latest research and the in-school coaching programme, which is new but proving to be very beneficial for staff at all stages of their career development.

Guidance and frameworks are readily available and regularly signposted through staff meetings and ‘teaching tips’ which occur once a week in place of a morning briefing. The school PLT (professional learning team) have put together a framework tailored to the setting based on the ‘Great Teaching and Learning Framework’ from the EEF. The framework has been annotated with examples from faculties in the school and published into a document that has been given to all staff. Hard copies are always available in the staff room.

When digging a little deeper into the views of colleagues on the CPD provision via the ‘climate checklist proforma’ I discovered there was still one element of whole school CPD the school had not quite got right yet.

I interviewed five staff members; three had been at the school for longer than 12 years, one was a teacher in their fourth year, and one was an ECT. All five teachers were pleased with the support and choice the school had provided through its ‘twilight toolkit’ programme for all staff. They all felt that the CPD lead along with the PLT were incredibly proactive and supportive. They also all felt able to approach them regarding subject specific external CPD they wished to complete.

The ECT was also confident in their development and the ECF programme and felt fully supported and challenged by their mentor. The fourth-year teacher was excited to be at a school that was so up to date with current thinking in research and this individual was keen to do further reading via their contacts on EduTwit. It was the more experienced teachers who had been teaching for much longer that were a little less enthusiastic. One said, ‘things go in and out of fashion and they end up coming round again called something else’ Another was a little tired of the big picture concepts that were delivered to all teachers together. They wanted to have more ‘fine-tuned, specific tips on specific students we share, or things that occur in our specific setting’. They felt there was a need for more time for staff to share ideas and discuss teaching and less time being ‘preached at’.

The opportunity to discuss and share is something that also came up after our annual multi-academy trust conference. Staff were asked to rotate through workshops and keynote speeches on a tight schedule for a day with little time to ‘chat’ with their counterparts from other schools. One of the biggest pieces of feedback/criticism was that staff wanted to learn from each other and discuss and problem solve specific things together, not have all of their CPD time taken up with outside experts.

Teaching can be a lonely exercise for some teachers who rarely have the opportunity to talk to other teachers due to their full timetables and busy break and lunchtimes. Opportunities for staff to learn from each other and support each other can be invaluable to wellbeing and morale as well as spread ideas and best practice.

This report has fed back to the CPD lead to enable this small change to take place, in particular for those teachers who have been at the setting for a long time and for those who work in small, isolated departments.
 


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