The International Angle

The International Angle

Let’s be honest, high performance isn’t an issue for many British international schools.

But it will be much more difficult for these institutions to maintain their quality standards in the future if they don’t effectively manage school improvement processes – activities such as staff CPD, performance appraisal and development planning that help individual staff members perform to the best of their abilities. 

No school leader would argue that the tracking and management of school improvement processes which help staff to help aren’t just as important as tracking pupil progress. 

If school leaders have a clear view of what’s happening in these areas they can make sure everybody plays a part in reaching school development targets.

It also means that leaders can identify which staff members need more professional support and everyone gets recognition for their contribution. The result is a better run school in which pupils prosper.

This is the ideal but many schools simply don’t have the means to track and manage these improvement processes in ways that make it easy for them to use the information and act on it. The fact is, many leaders think they have that ‘clear view’ but when compared with schools that use modern day tools, there is a yawning gap.

Many schools still follow the standard information gathering approach, which is usually a ‘homebrew’ solution that involves hyperlinked Word documents, over-complicated computer spreadsheets or lever arch files that are ultimately destined to sit on an office shelf.

Cost, time and complexity are the main reasons why this approach still persists in many schools. It’s too tricky to get that intelligent view with a PC spreadsheet because it takes too much time to mine the data, interpret it in various ways and link it to evidence.

It’s a complex problem for one school, let alone a group, yet we are moving into an era where schools are increasingly likely to be part of a group of other schools. This might be a formal arrangement, such as a chain, or as a collaboration. The complex challenges of school improvement planning are multiplied.

Recently I’ve been working with a large education provider operating schools across the Middle East, the UK  and the United States.

The challenge for this particular group of schools was that a range of homemade systems had sprung up over time in different schools. These were time consuming to use and it meant that there was little consistency from school to school in the type of information that was gathered.

It meant that head office didn’t have a complete view of how its schools were doing and wasn’t able to target support to schools that needed it precisely or quickly enough. This problem was exacerbated by the geographical spread of its schools; regular support or inspection visits were impractical. A standardised, online school improvement planning system across all schools meant that all schools were tracking the same processes in the same way so it became easier for head office to target support more precisely to schools that needed it.

Schools and school groups that have a homebrew approach to school improvement may also be missing out on opportunities to collaborate more widely with schools around the world. Sharing school improvement best practice is a proven way to drive improvement for all concerned.

Schools often talk about collaboration with others but when you dig deeper into the reality of how this happens it’s often little more than occasional meetings and telephone calls.

But collaboration really begins to mean something when schools adopt common systems and structures which enable them to share best practice in areas like teacher development and school development planning. With the same systems presenting information in the same way teachers can form mentoring partnerships that become long lasting arrangements which can draw on hard data.

Are schools up to the CPD challenge of School Direct?

Are schools up to the CPD challenge of School Direct?

With the ramping up of the School Direct scheme more and more schools will find themselves responsible for the CPD of a new generation of teachers.

But the techniques – and technology - that many schools are using to help track and manage the professional growth of these young professionals is seriously out of step with modern demands.

With School Direct we have the 21^st century reality of large scale in-school teacher training and development, yet the culture and the systems that most schools have for managing and tracking this on a school-wide and individual level is distinctly late 20^th century in its approach.

And my worry is that this will disempower teachers, especially trainees.

The vast majority of schools in England and Wales today – around 85 per cent – simply don’t have the means to track and manage processes like staff CPD and performance management in ways that fully take on board the needs and feedback of staff.

My experience, gained from working with thousands of leaders and teachers, is that although there is a real understanding of what constitutes good practice in relation to the identification and evaluation of CPD this isn’t translated into reality because the tools used to manage this fall short.

Many schools still rely on paper based systems or simple spreadsheets for managing CPD and  behind closed doors many of those responsible for managing CPD will admit these systems just provide a quantitative record of who requested what, where they went and how much it cost.

In professional development there should be two sides to the contract. If schools are to effectively support the development of their trainees they need to give them the means to build up a detailed, evidence rich picture of their professional development that will help them make informed decisions about their career path. Trainees need to know how their CPD has made them act differently and what the outcome of these changes have been. They need to reflect regularly on their development, evaluate that activity and be appraised by colleagues. In fact it’s an approach schools use all the time to track pupil attainment yet these common classroom approaches have yet to fully transfer into staff professional development.

We all want new and established teachers to take more control of their development, but if they can’t build up a rich picture of their development so far then it becomes more difficult for them to make informed choices about their future development path.

As well as putting the career development of new and existing teachers at risk current approaches to CPD and development can also be problematic for the school as a whole. Many CPD activities may not be as effective as they could be because many schools do not have a clear idea of exactly what is effective professional development - and what is not.

This isn’t to say that all CPD misses the mark, but I do believe that schools could draw more value out of their CPD investment by ensuring that what they deliver actually helps their colleagues and the school move forward.

The identification and analysis of individual professional development should be given far greater importance than it currently is. Quite simply this means asking more questions of ourselves and our peers about what we need to do to make progress. 

For teachers this approach to evaluation gives them a real stake in the process. It makes it easier for them to provide evidence of the impact of their CPD and also means that future CPD will be informed by them because an explicit link is made between CPD and the impact it has on school improvement.

Schools are increasingly in the driving seat in the professional development of new and existing teachers. It’s time to let technology help.

Does your CPD have a direct impact on school improvement?

School CPD - Everybody discusses it and nobody argues that it shouldn't happen. After all, if there was no professional development how would we progress?

But there’s plenty of professional development going on in school which just ticks boxes or satisfies a requirement for ‘something to be done.’

It certainly doesn’t always help a school improve.

For evidence of this you just have to look for the stifled yawns, eye rolling and blank stares at your next school inset day.

If there is any paperwork evaluating the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the training then it might just be a few ticks on an evaluation sheet which are then filed away in a lever arch folder and never seen again.

I think this happens because there is still a lack of understanding from leaders of what truly effective CPD is and whether it moves a school forward, as well as uncertainty around how to track the impact ofteacher CPD.

In tough financial times like today it has never been more important for CPD coordinators to know which professional development delivers the very best value for money.

I’d characterise school CPD as a bit like a huge set menu meal for thousands of people. This approach is, on the face of it, effective – many people engaging in many things. You’re bound to satisfy a few appetites and some people will even enjoy it. But there will be many people who don’t get what they want or more importantly, what they need. These people might well go hungry and be turned off the experience for the rest of their life.

There might be a multitude of reasons why not enough priority is being given to identifying the most appropriate CPD at the moment. This might be down to a lack of meaningful articulation of needs, a lack of context for evaluation and impact, unrealistic expectations associated with impact of CPD, or a lack of consistency around the value and nature of CPD.

How can you ensure CPD leads to school improvement?

So how can you and your leadership team colleagues overcome these barriers and ensure that teacher CPD returns on the investment and leads directly to individual progress and whole school improvement?

An excellent starting point can be a couple of well chosen questions. Ask your colleagues if they know how their CPD directly relates to school improvement. I doubt that they all do and the further you are from the headteacher’s ‘vision’ for the school the less connection or relevance you will see.

The next question to ask is, if an individual can’t convey or demonstrate how their own CPD relates to not only school development planning but their own wider development, why are they doing it?

While the pinnacle of successful CPD is an evidence base of positive impact, the foundation stone is the identification and understanding of what we need to do and what success or impact will look like.

I would suggest that the identification and analysis of individual professional development should be given a much greater importance. Quite simply this means asking more questions of ourselves and our colleagues about what we need to do to in order to move forward.

Supplying the evidence of CPD impact

Perhaps more problematic is how to supply the evidence of impact. My advice would be to look first at the actual impact itself and then link that back to the most relevant CPD event. In this way you can build up a rich picture of the effectiveness of each CPD activity. This helps you track which CPD activities result in tangible changes in the practice of the colleagues and therefore contributes to schoolimprovement – and which don’t.

This can then be influential in terms of future CPD planning decisions and help the school arrive at a point where all its CPD has an integral part in school improvement.

Interestingly we are always looking at the performance of pupils and assessing the quality of learning but there is still not enough good practice around that measures the productiveness of CPD and what that means in terms of quality of teaching.

Take an example, where a decision might be made to send a senior colleague on some leadership training about how to manage teams.

They will attend the training and then evaluate it. They will say how good it was, how effective they think it will be and what they will do differently as a result of receiving the training, and from where they expect to draw evidence of this.

At a later point that individual might be working on the school improvement plan. One priority area of the plan might be to improve leadership and management. They might write in the plan that they have recently introduced a series of peer led management meetings across the school and that this has enabled a much greater shared responsibility of leadership of the school. In other words they are describing impact or changes.

Once they have written that they should ask whether any of the CPD that has been delivered previously has been relevant to these changes. By ticking against a piece of CPD you establish a clear link between the CPD delivered and a tangible piece of school improvement. A clear, evidence based picture is built up of the great value and impact of that particular piece of CPD. This gives you and your colleagues a strong guide as to what CPD works in your school context.

Empowering teachers

For teachers this approach to evaluation gives them a real stake in the process. It makes it easier for them to provide evidence of the impact of their CPD and also means that future CPD will be informed by them because an explicit path is made between CPD and the impact it has had on school improvement.

This approach has a powerful effect on the bottom line as well because all of the money invested in CPD will deliver tangible, measurable school improvement and this will make future spending decisions that much easier.

With budgets decreasing schools have to be absolutely sure that the money they have to spend on CPD works. It’s now time to make CPD really count.

Keith Wright is MANAGING DIRECTOR of school information management specialist Bluewave.SWIFT.  He has worked with hundreds of schools during in the past decade supporting institutional leadership and management. For the past six years Keith has worked with Leeds City Council to develop their quality standards framework for adoption by schools in the UK and overseas. He has also advised overseas education ministries on raising school standards through the effective use of school improvement support systems. For further information go to www.bluewaveswift.co.uk