Peer-to-peer CPD can be a great boost to teacher confidence

Professional development isn’t always about the best teaching the rest, get by with a little help from your peers, says Debbie Barkes...

Professional development and learning run by teachers and leaders rather than outside training providers has become increasingly popular in recent years. It’s part of a broader move towards what the government calls “the self-improving system”, with schools taking charge of their own progression.

Teaching school alliances, such as ours in Lincolnshire, are a good example of this trend. The message in all this is that schools know best what they need to improve, and in many circumstances a school’s own teachers and leaders can be very effective in delivering training and development focused on those exact needs.

In a lot of in-school professional development, it is often those deemed to be expert practitioners who are given the job of developing others. This ‘mantle of the expert’ approach is the right one for much in-house and school-to-school improvement work, especially when the stakes are high and quick results are needed. With our alliance’s school-to-school support work we use experts such as Specialist Leaders of Education (SLEs) who will go into a struggling school and support its teachers and leaders as they address urgent improvement priorities, such as phonics or the writing of lower-attaining boys. Our experts might also be used to deliver statutory training such as safeguarding, CPD courses such as NPQML (National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership) and lead professional learning and research across the alliance.

But while there’s a place for the best practitioners to share their skills and knowledge to support others, this approach is less appropriate when it comes to the general development of an individual teacher’s skills. Classroom practitioners and leaders who have received a satisfactory or inadequate Ofsted rating may have lost confidence, in which case being shown lots of outstanding practice does little to bolster self esteem. In these cases you have to build up staff from where they are, rather than continually showing them those who are best. When professional confidence has an important part to play, that’s when we would go for a peer-to-peer approach.

Tag team champions

In our alliance’s work with schools, we sometimes pair teachers who require improvement with other teachers who are, or were, in the same position. For example, we might have one teacher finding it hard to give effective feedback to his pupils, or who is having a rough ride with a particularly challenging class. In this situation we would look at a peer-to-peer approach, searching across our alliance for a teacher who has faced a similar challenge, who is at the same stage of his career and teaching the same age group of children, so the two could support each other.

When I put someone who is struggling in this way with an expert, the temptation is to think that if they copy exactly what the other person is doing, the problem will go away. They become too reliant on that expert. If we are going to make people move forward, the school has got to take an active role. By pairing someone with her equal she is not looking to replicate a leading example. It’s a joint enquiry where both parties will find new approaches, and they will be more proactive and engaged in the development of these. It’s a much more nurturing, positive way of improving teachers.

This peer-to-peer approach isn’t just for situations where colleagues need to work together to address difficulties, however. It can also be used to help schools identify opportunities to improve teaching and learning.

We started this approach in one of our schools – Lincoln Carlton Academy – two years ago and it is now beginning to roll out across the alliance. The school developed IMPact teams (Improving my practice through action) – made up of small groups of staff – which were initially selected by the head, but it was later decided that it was better if the staff themselves chose with whom they wanted to learn. It’s about trusting the staff to have these professional discussions.

The IMPact teams are currently looking at the use of iPad apps for teacher feedback to pupils. We gave each IMPact team one of four apps to look at. Each team is trying out an app in lesson observations with each other and they will then report back on the app’s advantages and disadvantages. Eventually, one of the four apps will be adopted by the school.

Triple threat

As a teaching school alliance we are also developing cross school ‘triads’ – a type of learning group similar to the IMPact teams. We are going to going to ask each triad to pick one type of pedagogy to trial, and then produce a report.

Although the groups are relaxed and non-hierarchical, they are very structured in how they analyse the topic they are working on. They assess it against a framework, analysing an approach using a set list of measures, such as its impact on learning, whether it deepens thinking and improves engagement in learning.

Our peer-to-peer support approach, the work of the IMPact teams and the new cross-school triads are part of our belief at Kyra that it is teachers and leaders themselves who are very often best placed to lead the ongoing training and development of their peers. These approaches have a firm grounding in research – we’ve based them on ‘joint practice development’ approaches, described by Professor David Hargreaves as the most powerful form of professional development. The findings of the IMPact teams will also feed into the research work of the alliance, to be shared with other teaching school alliances across the country.

Peer review

Learn more about how this approach can help you and your school with a free CPD white paper…

A free white paper featuring a detailed case study of professional development at Kyra teaching school alliance, and a discussion about the peer-to-peer CPD approach outlined by Debbie, is now available from school improvement management specialist Bluewave Education.

‘Making a difference: How can schools empower every professional to play a part in school improvement?’ is based on a round-table discussion held at UCL Institute of Education. Hosted by Bluewave Education managing director Keith Wright, the event featured discussions between Debbie, academics, union representatives and other school leaders, covering CPD and other school improvement issues.

During the discussion, Kyra’s peer-to-peer CPD approach attracted comment from a number of delegates, including Philippa Cordingley of teaching research body CUREE (Centre for the Use of Research & Evidence in Education) who said it was important for teachers to take risks together, especially if there was a “reciprocal vulnerability” as well, because that helped to speed up the trust building that was essential for taking risks.

The document also contains recommendations for change that will assist staff get more involved in helping their schools improve. These include a focus on subject-by-subject improvement, a greater commitment to meaningful reflection and professional development for all leaders and teachers, and more structured collaboration with other schools.

Download the report at tinyurl.com/TPBluewave.

About the author

Debbie Barkes is headteacher of St Faith’s Infants School in Lincoln and CPD lead of Kyra Teaching School Alliance (kyrateachingschool.com).