When one muses over the purpose of teaching and the inherent skills that teachers should possess, it would be easy to assume that continuing professional development should be an intrinsic part of teaching. Individuals who spend the best part of their day nurturing and motivating skills in others would jump at opportunities to further their own understanding…wouldn’t they? If this is true, it is a strange anomaly that many teachers roll their eyes and sigh at the mention of both in-house training and commercial courses. It is clear that something needs to be done to challenge both the apathy of staff and the possible incompetence of School Leadership and course facilitators.
With the learning manager revolution, every school should have someone who is directly responsible for facilitating CPD. This involves answering the difficult “chicken and the egg” question of how far CPD should be influenced by the schools' development plan or by teacher need. Is it possible that it can promote teachers’ careers and improve the overall performance of schools too? Another balance that also needs to be struck is between time dedicated to subject areas and pastoral issues. The expectations are perhaps spread too thinly; the conflicting nature of these aims makes it easy to see why some schools are failing to make CPD useful and accessible to all their staff.
LEAs recommend how much schools should be spending on CPD; for instance, Southwark Council recommend that 1% of a school’s overall budget should be dedicated to developing teachers. That said, schools operate a certain amount of discretion over how these funds are spent. This freedom is beneficial but it has led to vast disparities in how different schools utilise their funds.
Let’s deal with in-house training first- since the creation of the infamous Baker Days in the 1980s, schools have been expected to dedicate five days per year to training their staff. In Darwinian style, different schools have adapted this requirement to suit their needs. Certain schools hire out hotels to treat staff to a day out, away from the school environment. These events could be beneficial in breaking up unhelpful cliques that exist by forcing people out of their comfort niches; it also scuppers the tendency for individuals to slink off to their offices when they think no-one is looking. The more cynical may view these days as an unnecessarily frivolous attempt by SLG to distract teachers’ attention away from deeply entrenched problems with a “jolly”.
Other schools stretch the system by giving teachers extra days off in exchange for twilight sessions. Training is delivered through a series of after-school sessions rather than having an entire day dedicated to it. Whilst there are clear morale-boosting benefits, these sessions can end becoming too dispersed and viewed as an “add on” to the general school day rather than something worthwhile in its own right.
In Kent, school’s priorities are changing with the introduction of ‘Building Schools for the Future’; certain schools have started a new programme whereby students are sent packing for one afternoon per week, giving staff the extra time to take part in different training exercises both as a whole body and in smaller planning “parties”. This unsurprisingly has been celebrated by pupils, and staff have also started to see the benefits. It allows for continuity, helps to develop relationships across subjects and ensures that teachers feel included in the ethos of the school. It does however require careful organisation and staff feedback has shown that certain sessions have been received more favourably than others. The key to any in-house training is careful consideration of how to make the subject in hand relevant and accessible to all teachers. No mean feat given that they are the most unforgiving and judgemental audience one could ever have.
Despite the problems that exist within schools, Heads still have the luxury of control and are ultimately responsible for the programmes that they put in place. Outside of school, opportunities for CPD operate within an unregulated minefield. When teachers gain a fraction of responsibility, they are almost ironically immersed in a paper jungle. On a daily basis, they are forced to wade through an exotic array of courses offered by a myriad of institutions including: museums, galleries, commercial companies, universities, examining boards and LEAs. Teachers have to battle against the attitude that one is not a real pedagogue unless they are holding court in front of a class. Every time they consider taking time out of school, they are aware that they are leaving classes to be covered and will have to pick up the consequent behaviour issues and marking when they return. This can make individuals reluctant to research courses (this is on the proviso they even have time to do this) that could be crucial to their development. With institutions charging anything from £180- 300, courses cannot be booked on a whim (“That leaflet looks super!”) and schools are under increasing pressure to ensure they are getting value for money.
Let’s be honest, most teachers have experienced pointless courses. There are several reasons why independent courses can fail to inspire. Courses that claim to get the most techno-phobic teacher ICT savvy, can be relatively futile if they do not focus on the specific software that participants use at their school. Other courses may be pitched incorrectly and rely far too much on teachers sharing “good practice”: writing wonderful things on post it notes and sticking them on sugar paper. These always end with a “plenary” where the facilitator regurgitates banal clichés and patronisingly pats everyone on the back. As one teacher remarked:
‘It was all very posh. We had little notepads, pencils and bottles of water on the tables. But I could have delivered a better course myself. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.’
These bad cappuccino (all froth and no substance) events generally leave teachers feeling disheartened and complacent. Teachers can also feel stressed about how they will feedback about unsatisfactory courses. If they are negative, then they could seem ungrateful; it may also mean that SLG are less willing to authorise courses inn the future. It is very difficult to ascertain from the advertising jargon crammed in bulging pigeon holes what courses are actually worth their salt.
Some of the best courses are predictably run by examining bodies. However, these have also faced criticism; chief examiners have been accused of “moonlighting”: earning private money when they should be focused upon improving the current assessment system. As these courses flourish, another worry is that exam boards will become more reluctant to distribute free materials and resources to schools. Why face these costs when they can charge money and make a profit? Schools are at their mercy; the courses cannot help but be relevant as these bodies dictate what the pupils need to know in their exams. Therefore, even if the provider is bum-numbingly inept, the content will be greedily gobbled up by teachers under pressure to meet their performance management targets.
The attitude of Head Teachers can be detrimental too, one Head stated that courses ‘Really should be cream-cake and coffee time.’ Given the prevalence of views such as this, it is not surprising that The Training and Development Agency found that 41% of schools had never consulted national organisations. Insular behaviour can lead to schools becoming archaically ignorant.
Although at present there is a distinct lack of a system of accreditation for commercial courses, there is some good news. Teachers TV have employed regional CPD advisors and in autumn 2008, the TDA finally launched a national database for CPD. This was spear-headed by former London Schools Commissioner, Tim Brighouse who argues that: ‘for too long CPD was the Cinderella of school budget making.’ His wish is for the database to emulate the Amazon book review website; it should be a forum for teachers to share their experiences and for courses to gain the credit they truly deserve. In the private sector, any form of CPD is carefully assessed and culled if it is not immediately successful. Companies that play with tax-payers’ money should face the same kind of scrutiny. Nevertheless, the database will not perform this function unless teachers take time to feedback on their experiences.
So what’s the answer? Greater accountability and sharing of good practice?
Funny that.
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