The CPD Curriculum

Creating conditions for growth

Mark Enser, Zoe Enser

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781785835766
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Co-authored by Zoe Enser and Mark Enser, The CPD Curriculum: Creating conditions for growth shares expert and practical guidance for schools on designing and delivering continuing professional development (CPD) that truly lives up to its name.

There is a wealth of research available on professional learning, from both within and outside the education sphere, and in this book Zoe and Mark pull it all together to help school leaders optimise teachers' ongoing learning and growth.

Zoe and Mark explain how schools can overcome issues with CPD that can leave teachers plateauing in their development after just a few years, and share a variety of case studies that illustrate the key
components of an effective CPD programme that builds on teachers' prior knowledge.

The authors spell out the importance of CPD and explain how, when done well, it gives teachers the agency to make professional decisions informed by the best evidence and experience they have to hand. Furthermore, they explore how high-quality professional development contributes not only to a collaborative culture within the school staff team and enhanced job satisfaction for teachers, but also to improved student outcomes.

Split into three parts - intent, implementation and impact - the book covers a range of key areas, including: coaching and mentoring, subject-specific CPD, empowerment and self-efficacy, delivery methods and quality of materials. They also examine the current issues and common pitfalls surrounding CPD and offer guidance on how it can be improved, with clear end goals in mind.

Suitable for school leaders, heads of department and CPD leads in all settings.

Chapter 1

Why CPD matters

Great teachers make a difference.

There is little argument around this statement, otherwise as a profession we would have packed up and gone home long ago. We know that schools and schooling have a significant role to play in developing pupils who go on to be active participants in society, but do we always recognise quite how significant quality teacher input can be in achieving this?

Research indicates that the impact of the most effective teachers is the biggest factor in improving pupil outcomes and the overall quality of education they receive. Slater, Davies and Burgess’s 2009 study found that there was a 300% difference in the impact of the best and the weakest teachers (the top and bottom 25% determined by pupil outcomes), with a significant 18 months of progress being made in the classes of the most effective teachers in one year, in comparison to six months of progress with the weakest teachers.1 This is echoed by Dylan Wiliam, who found that the research overall suggests:

it doesn’t matter very much which school you go to, but it matters very much which classrooms in that school you are in. And it is not class size that makes the difference, nor is it the presence or absence of setting by ability—these have only marginal effects. 14 The only thing that really matters is the quality of the teacher.2

If we want to see great outcomes for all pupils, we need to develop all of our teachers and we need each and every one of them to believe that this is possible. As Rob, a middle and senior leader who has been teaching for nearly two decades, said in a recent Twitter conversation, in order to avoid stagnation we each need to:

avoid the trap of believing you’re the finished article – be willing to reflect on your own practice and open to new ideas and ways of doing things.3

We are always works in progress – and recognition of our need to improve, develop and move forward is an important step in bringing about change.

Effective teaching also has a significance which reaches well beyond the school gates. In The Teacher Gap Rebecca Allen and Sam Sims explore the benefits of effective teaching on wider society.4 They refer to research by one of the most “influential economists in the world”, Raj Chetty, who found that:

moving a child from a poor quality (bottom 5 percent) teacher to an average quality teacher increases their lifetime earnings by a quarter of a million dollars.5

15 David Didau, in his book Making Kids Cleverer, takes this further arguing that:

if we want our children to be happier, healthier and more successful, to live longer and to earn more, then it will pay to try to make them cleverer.6

When put like that it sounds simple. But whether you think that the main purpose of education is to share the best that has been thought or said or to nurture happy, healthy and productive citizens, or – like most of us probably do – that it is a combination of the two, it will be through striving for excellent teachers that we will have the greatest impact of all.

The economic angle on education and the purpose of schools is especially poignant in 2020, at the time of writing. Recent projections regarding the impact of COVID-19 suggest the economic, and therefore the social, impact of the crisis is likely to be felt for a staggering 65 years.7 There is a great deal of discussion around how to fill the potential gaps and enable pupils to “catch up”, but the evidence on effective teaching seems to indicate that our best bet for achieving this is to invest in high-quality teacher education and development in order to ensure that all pupils have access to the benefits of great teaching.

There is also evidence which indicates that effective teacher instruction has a disproportionately positive impact on the outcomes of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, so it would seem that social change can also be enacted by ensuring that we are 16 developing our teachers’ abilities.8 In fact, this last point highlights the fact that effective teaching shouldn’t just be a desire but that we have a moral imperative to ensure that we are giving all of our pupils the best life chances possible, especially if we have clear designs on mitigating the impact of childhood poverty. Research collated by the OECD found:

Educational attainment has been positively associated with self-reported good health, political interest and interpersonal trust (OECD, 2010e). Crime and other illegal activities may decrease, since better educated people tend to be less involved in criminality (OECD, 2010d). Education, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful ways to improve social outcomes and foster social progress (Woessmann, 2008). Indeed, many economic and social problems such as teenage pregnancy and unhealthy habits are linked to low levels of educational attainment and skills.9

Unfortunately, it seems that much in-school CPD does little to improve the quality of teaching. Research suggests that whilst a teacher may improve quite rapidly in their first three to five years in the profession, any improvement then tends to level off and the teacher becomes no more effective according to any measurable outcome.10 Mike Hobbiss, Sam Sims and Rebecca Allen sug...