My session at the forthcoming SSAT conference aims to help school leaders, teachers and CPD facilitators use the new Standard for CPD to create a dynamic and coherent environment for continuing professional development and learning. We will be concentrating on Ofsted’s frequently repeated challenge to schools to evaluate the impact of CPD more effectively; and looking at ways of doing this that also enhance the quality of the process for teachers and for their pupils.
Here’s a mini blog that I hope will tempt you to join us!
Evaluating impact in ways that really help
Ofsted frequently remark in their individual and annual reports on the superficiality of efforts to evaluate the impact of CPD and the lack of evidence about connections between support for CPD and pupil learning. We will be looking at examples of enhancing CPD in ways that embed better evaluation of impact, thinking specifically and in connected ways about how to organise this around aspirations for pupils (rather than end of day ’happy sheets’!)
The first ever systematic review of CPD carried out by CUREE, and sponsored by NUT, revealed that glowing evaluation forms at the end of a programme or session were often negatively linked with benefits for pupils. Support for CPD that makes a difference seemed to involve trying new things that, in the early stages, can look daunting or involve some unlearning and discomfort. Such challenges do not necessarily lead to positive short-term evaluations.