Effectiveness of CPD (CUREE)

This paper by CUREE was commissioned by the GTC, hoping to answer many questions around how CPD decisions are made in school and how CPD can become more "demand led".

Key points:
- while there is plenty of guidance about designing CPD around targeted student outcomes, there was little evidence about effective practice in this regard
- teachers seldom had ‘hard data’ to quantify the effects of changing practice on students, and student outcome reports about motivation or performance were often anecdotal
- the more strategic schools were developing a broad approach to the collection and evaluation of a range of evidence and one of the key factors distinguishing “the most coherent practice from the rest” was the level of ‘planning for impact’ linked to identified needs and clearly articulated intended outcomes
- Ofsted (2006) found that few schools evaluated the impact of CPD on teaching and learning effectively, largely because they failed to identify at the planning stage its intended outcomes and suitable evaluation methods
- ‘poorly developed’ evaluation of CPD tends to focus more on the inputs than the outcomes
- the creation of a collaborative learning environment for teachers is ‘the single most important factor' for successful school improvement
- schools which had designed their CPD effectively and integrated it with their improvement plans found that teaching and learning standards rose
- Schools which take a strategic approach to CPD:
• Put student learning at the heart of all professional learning
• Provide opportunities for staff to collaborate and to be proactive about their own learning
• Ensure that all staff are aware of and share the school’s approach to professional learning
• Align school, departmental and individual staff priorities and set them in the context of national and local priorities and resources
• Locate the leadership of CPD at senior management level
• Use a mix of specialist expertise and collaborative coaching
• Use a mix of whole school, departmental and individual pupil data to inform CPD decision making