headteacher-secondary

teachwire.net FIVE STEPS TO GREAT VALUE CPD 1 Make sure you align all CPD with the school’s development and improvement priorities. 2 Be brutally honest when planning for the professional needs of staff when implementing new developments/initiatives; it takes more time than you think. 3 Build professional development time, for all staff, into the structure of the week and year; maximise it in directed time and provide additional voluntary CPD. 4 Teachers collaborating together – within school and across schools – on curriculum planning, development & evaluation is a powerful form of CPD. 5 Book clubs provide an effective low cost way of developing and deepening staff’s knowledge and understanding. sometimes years. Either choose your priorities first, or waste a whole load of time and money doing too many things badly. The latter is a curse in many schools. Build CPD into the structure of your school week and academic year. Well over a decade ago, it was decided at St. Mary’s to shorten the school day once a week each Thursday, by 30 minutes. The pupils go home at 2:40pm, giving staff the chance to engage in professional development from 3pm to 5pm. Most of the meetings are given off to departments with the expressed intent of collaborative working to improve teaching and consequentially learning. The cost of this is £nil. Likewise, we used our academy freedoms (though the idea originally came from a maintained school) to have additional INSET days at our three academies – one secondary and two primaries – with a similar approach to that described for the Thursday afternoon CPD time. If schools are willing to coordinate their INSET days, it can be much more cost effective to bring in an external expert to provide specific input, while sharing the cost. Get together As well as collaborating within school, collaboration between schools increases the pool of expertise. Within our Trust, for example, a RE secondary specialist supported the development of a conceptual framework and the writing of schemes of learning for the primary academies’ curriculum RE. He also provided subject- specific professional development for our primary teachers. The cross-Trust lead on maths – a mathematician and KS1-trained specialist – also supported the development of the KS3 maths curriculum, helping our secondary teachers avoid the dips that can so easily happen at transition. Working beyond the Trust, a group of secondary and primary staff would meet regularly to plan a KS2 scheme of learning for science. These meetings filled afternoons, meaning that some internal and supply cover was needed, but the curriculum documents that emerged represented great value for money. Once the science schemes were completed, there was the need to provide ongoing CPD for all staff in the schools to ensure high quality implementation and teaching. This programme was supported by offering a 'BOGOF' deal to the schools involved on our Research School training programme on the Education Endowment Foundation KS3 Guidance (which was equally applicable to KS2). Teachers from the Trust received their training for free; we didn't charge ourselves for the courses, resulting in another money saver. Our Research School at St. Mary’s, jointly funded by the EEF and the DfE, was a real bonus in many ways. Our research leads, who contributed to the development of EEF guidance documents, training programmes and programme resources, delivered internal courses for staff at no further cost. Many Teaching School Alliances have operated in a similar way, also offering courses in a locality; collaborative approaches can see schools offering to lead some of these courses at no cost, and in return having access to the full range of courses available for free. Whether you are a Research School or Teaching School or neither, all schools have some level of internal expertise that can be utilised and harnessed in this way. Read about it A great way of developing staff’s knowledge of a particular issue or area was our 'Read and discuss' book club. The process was voluntary, allowing staff to engage with some books and not others, as per their interests and time commitments. We would order books for staff, handing them out for people to read and keep, before setting up a couple of after-school meetings. Staff could then attend these, having read the book, to discuss their thoughts – a massive impact for just a few hundred pounds in total. Professional development mustn’t become merely an 'add on' or a 'nice to have' luxury. When correctly focused, it belongs right at the heart of school improvement – because school improvement is far easier to acheieve when you have a knowledgeable, skilful and committed staff. 19 C P D “CPD isn’t a one hit wonder or a lightning strike” ABOUT THE AUTHOR Stephen Tierney is a former MAT CEO and leadership consultant; for more details, visit leadinglearner.me