Trust-wide CPD Leaders' Forum Blog

T his September, I embarked on a new adventure: becoming the Director of a small MAT Learning Institute. As an emerging system, school trusts offer a unique leadership experience, the role might be uncharted as Multi-academy trusts grow. This blog post reflects on my journey so far, sharing insights and advice for anyone considering a similar move. Stepping into the Unknown One of the biggest surprises? The absence of a school bell. After 20+ years in schools, this newfound freedom initially led to an overbooked calendar. The shift from the structured school environment, with lessons, duties, and immediate pupil feedback, demanded a tighter grip on time management. It's a work in progress, but I'm learning to create a schedule that works for me. But also a belief that what I am doing is right. Another significant change is the focus on long-term impact. As a teacher, you get instant gratification from student responses. In this leadership role, the impact is less immediate and ...

  Among the alarming teacher recruitment statistics released by the Department for Education last month are some particularly dispiriting headlines for English teachers. Back in June, The Guardian reported that many secondary heads are ‘shocked to find it is now a battle to find teachers for English - traditionally a subject that buoyed recruitment numbers’. It stated that, at the time of print, there were more than 900 vacancies for a September start. Which begs the question, why are so many English teachers leaving the profession?  These issues are not exclusive to English, of course. If, as Schools Week reported recently, 40,000 teachers left last year, we might well ask whether the recently hard-won pay offer is going to be enough not just to attract people to our profession, but to keep them in our classrooms. The real question might be, why are we not talking more about teacher retention ? At the point when I left full-time teaching, I had taught English in secondary ...

  Chapter 6 - Impact      And so, we arrive at the end of our story and the promised land of improved student outcomes. The logic pathway from PD inception to improved outcomes is not at all straightforward and is so multi-causal that drawing a direct line between the two may be impossible. There are however some intermediary steps that may be easier to measure, and in themselves may be a useful f or PD leaders to reflect on.     In 1976 Donald Kirkpatrick produced a taxonomy of data types that could be used to evaluate training programmes in organisations as well as other interventions such as coaching and mentoring. Despite its age, the model remains a benchmark tool for evaluation and has inspired several adaptations including Kaufman’s Model of Learning Evaluation (1994) and Guskey’s (2000) work on evaluating professional development in schools. The four levels of Kirkpatrick’s model are as follows:      Level 1 – Reaction : How do the partici...