Recent research commissioned and published by Education International and undertaken by CUREE highlights the importance of continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) in the formation of teachers' professional identity.
CPDL emerges as important to teacher recruitment and retention and to overall system performance. But the report also flags three pitfalls about the way CPDL is used. It cautions that:
- simply increasing the quantity of CPD available is not enough;
- linking CPDL to pupil outcomes is important but not sufficient - it needs to link also to teachers' professional values
- focusing scarce CPD resources on struggling teachers risks establishing CPDL as 'remedial' not supportive