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.

Measuring CPD Impact - Let’s clear away the confusion

Let’s clear away the confusion

It would be rare to find a school today that didn’t have systems of some kind in place that helped them accurately track and measure the attainment of pupils.

Management information and pupil assessment systems are now commonplace in schools and academies because they make it easy for leaders to analyse a student’s progress so that teachers can target support where it is most needed.

Ensuring that no pupil falls through the net and that every student meets or exceeds their potential is a number one priority for every school leader.

But in order for them to fully realise these ambitions they need to look at ‘backroom’ school improvement processes such as CPD, performance management and development planning as much as what happens in the classroom.

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 the contribution their work makes. The result is a better run school in which pupils prosper.

We know these processes have a big impact on pupil performance. The Teacher Development Trust for example highlights a New Zealand study showing that classes whose teachers had taken part in high-quality professional development improved twice as fast as those in other classes. It also showed that the 20 per cent of pupils deemed ‘least able’ made improvements up to six times faster than their peers in other classes.

Strange, then, that the vast majority of schools in England and Wales today – around 85 per cent – 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, the gap is quite staggering.

Most schools still follow the standard information gathering approach, usually involving hyperlinked Word documents, over-complicated computer spreadsheets or lever arch files destined to sit on an office shelf.

Money, time and complexity are the main reasons why this approach still persists. 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. I’ve seen for myself some wonderfully creative, DIY documents which at first appear to be a massive step forward for schools. But after a few months, it becomes quite apparent that maintaining these tools is a full time job which can’t be sustained because there aren’t the resources. Another downside of this approach is that these ‘homebrew’ tools often become unstable and this frustrates school leaders when they need to access accurate information.  

As well as clouding a school’s view of what it needs to do to keep on improving, this traditional approach could also create problems with Ofsted. The body now wants schools and academies to give full account of the improvement processes that ultimately have a huge impact upon pupil attainment. It wants evidence that the SLT knows the school’s strengths and weaknesses, that leaders are immersed in self-evaluation and that development plans are focused on improving teaching and raising achievement.

These are compelling reasons for schools to change, yet most still have a bit of a blind spot in this area.  I worry that this reluctance might be a sign of a deeper, age old, issue– a fear of change.

All school leaders and their staff are open to change if it means tangible improvements. But human nature is what it is and some schools think it better to avoid the discomfort and continue as they have always done.

I believe the intelligent management of these processes will help leaders and their staff overcome these fears. School improvement planning and the monitoring of impact shouldn’t be about cold data crunching. We need to use technology to support people in their development and let them make a real contribution to school objectives. This applies equally to individuals following their own career path and large organisations trying to make sense of the bigger picture. Essentially, it’s time to adopt modern day business practice for the business side of things so that the number one priority, education, is informed, evidence lead and free from the burden of bureaucracy .

For example, if a school’s performance management systems show that staff need some professional development in a particular area it would help if they were given the means to evaluate that CPD themselves and back this up with evidence that it is making a difference – or not. Many leaders will claim they already do this, but are the methods they use sustainable, accessible and above all, do they solve the old problem of how to produce evidence of the impact of CPD on pupil achievement?

This is easier said than done with traditional tracking and management methods but it is achievable using the online school improvement planning systems that are now available. These systems can unify staff rather than alienate them, giving them a voice in the change management process that otherwise might not be heard. This is about staff having ownership and control and it helps dissipate their fears about change.

The issues around school improvement planning that I pointed out earlier are likely to become even more pronounced for leaders of groups of schools, such as academy chains, federations and trusts.

Recently I’ve been spending more time working with groups of schools, helping them to address these issues. They are all faced with some common challenges. The chief one is how to reduce the time spent on school improvement planning across their schools while ensuring that there is consistency in tracking, management, reporting and ultimately quality assurance so that it makes it easier to manage and deliver support where it is needed.

In these situations the quality assurance of member schools becomes a pressure point because of geographical distance. A teaching school will, for example, need to monitor the progress of teacher training students and the quality of its ITT provision.

With online systems the miles don’t matter as much. This gives school leaders the means of reviewing the schools from where they work and target support where it is needed.

As the UK education system becomes more diverse, with academies at the forefront of this transformation, there is now an even greater need for schools to manage themselves as effectively as possible. Paper and spreadsheets might give schools data about their school improvement processes, but it won’t be easy to interpret or act upon because it will be so difficult to manipulate.

It really is time for schools to get a clear, intelligent view of improvement processes like CPD, performance management and development planning so that they can meet the demands of accountability – and help staff help pupils achieve.

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