Train Smarter

We’re wasting the talent and energy of too many members of our profession, says David Weston. More powerful CPD is needed if teachers are to thrive...

When I visit schools, the relentless dedication of teachers never fails to impress me. Despite some of the longest working hours and highest workloads in the world, we have one of the most innovative and copied education systems. Even so, we’re ignoring too much of the research about effective teacher development, leaving many feeling burned out and demotivated.

Research by the TDA1 an endless array of tips, tricks and one-offs. These are typically delivered to teachers in lecture form or as written guidance. Behind this is usually a very well-meaning senior leadership team who are simply reacting to the enormous pressures put upon them from outside. They are having trouble prioritising just one or two key ideas and passing control to teachers.

However, we also know that this sort of professional development is very unlikely to deliver the improvements in teaching quality that schools are seeking. Instead, we need to move to much more systematic approaches that are backed by greater amounts of time and resources.

Professional development can be split in to three different types:

* Professional updates and awareness: keeping abreast of discussions, research, innovations and changes that are afoot in your area of professional expertise. This may take place through conferences, social media, newspapers, books and newsletters, as well as by visits to other schools.

* Practice and teacher skills: auditing and updating the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective practitioner and fulfil a role. This may include skill audits, self-study, coaching (from experts or peers), watching demonstrations and the use of video.

* Student learning and impact: carrying out enquiry projects to identify and resolve issues around student learning and behaviour. This may include action research, collaborative enquiry projects and lesson study.

Typically speaking, senior leaders are the only ones who are given the time and resources to carry out regular professional updates. But I believe every teacher needs to be abreast of changes in his or her area if the latest thinking it to be brought into schools.

As a profession we’re often squeamish about auditing our own skills, so we need to make sure every school views identifying areas for development as a welcome activity, and that this triggers plenty of the necessary support. At the same time we need to be wary of dictating ‘best practice’ teaching techniques to one another without proper consideration for the underlying theory, or adequate opportunity to practice and embed these ideas.

Finally, we need to make much, much more time for teachers to collaborate on planning and observation if we are to identify and solve issues standing in the way of student learning. This requires a commitment by leaders to markedly reduce workloads for teachers and to find the protected time, cover and resources necessary to make it work.

One obvious area is marking and planning – our teachers spend more hours than any other country in the world on comment marking and yet there is plenty of evidence from the TALIS report on other high-performing education systems that much of this time could be used more effectively, on professional development, if we’re serious about improving outcomes.

Recent research by CUREE for Teach First identified the following CPD practices in exceptional schools:

* Extensive formal coaching and mentoring

* Clearer, consistent, evidence-based and cross-curricular pedagogical strategies

* Fully-embedded collaborative professional learning

* A higher level of buy-in and trust from staff, and higher financial investment from leaders

* More use of internal expertise and ASTs

* A high priority on subject knowledge

* A whole-school, sustained focus with individual support

* Impact continuously and carefully evaluated

This isn’t easy and we need schools to come together to support improvements in practice in teacher development.

Schools in the Teacher Development Trust’s National Teacher Enquiry Network (NTEN) are auditing themselves and each other against a rigorous quality framework, changing their culture and practice in order to encourage teacher-led improvement. Other schools may not yet have embarked on this journey, but it is time for everyone to take these issues seriously.

About the author

David Weston is Chief Executive of the Teacher Development Trust, the national independent charity for teachers’ professional development, and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Education.