Every year around this time, the sector comes alive with talk about how far the government is prepared to invest in teachers through their salaries in the next academic year. That’s an important and necessary debate to have, but it should not be the only narrative around teacher investment.
Likewise, salary is obviously a key part of the teacher recruitment and retention process, but again, it is not the only form of investment through which we can attract and retain teachers.
In both cases, CPD that is context driven, rigorously evidenced and properly targeted can make a significant contribution to a teacher’s feeling of being valued and invested in, while also providing them with the skills and knowledge to improve their ability to do their job effectively.
Teacher development report
This is why the report that the Institute for Public Policy Research and Ambition Institute have sets out a vision for delivering the professional development entitlement that Labour promised in its manifesto and empowering teachers and leaders to meet the challenges in their schools.
The Labour leadership committed to more than double the spend on teacher professional development in their manifesto. That’s obviously become trickier to deliver.
On the cusp of the Spending Review being concluded, global markets look set to be unstable for the foreseeable future, and the Treasury will have mounting concerns about where to find the money to back the government’s targets.
In this context of tighter government budgets and the need to continue to improve teacher pay, the Department for Education will rightly be focusing on a few top priorities. Delivering on their promise of a professional development entitlement needs to be one of them.
Teacher recruitment targets
Without it, they risk asking for high and rising standards in every school, without providing the necessary support to teachers and leaders - a policy trap too many previous governments have fallen into.
Helpfully, there are solid foundations to build on.
The previous government invested in the “golden thread” of evidence-informed programmes - initial teacher training, the early career entitlement and national professional qualifications (NPQ) - which has provided a shared language through which to talk about teaching and learning.
Around a quarter of a million teachers have accessed the Early Career Framework or an NPQ since 2021, and evaluations show there is much to celebrate.
Golden thread of CPD
These programmes have become the spine of professional development for the teacher workforce, and we are therefore calling on the government to ensure these are universally available and free at the point of access to all teachers and school leaders nationally, and for the long term.
For example, if you could commit to funding for three-year periods, this would allow schools, trusts and local authorities to plan how best to focus their local offer.
In turn, this empowers teachers with a clear sense of what is available to help them flourish professionally, so they can both pursue their individual interests and contribute to local improvement priorities.
On that point, while the existing programmes are essential, they are insufficient to meet all the workforce’s needs and must be expanded.
More providers needed
A world-class teacher development entitlement should offer greater breadth and variety - both in content and course length - for teachers who want to deepen their classroom expertise rather than move into leadership, and leaders who want to specialise in key areas.
So, as well as national providers, the government should be thinking about how it can support and sustain a variety of smaller providers with regional or specialist expertise, to help build a strong and supportive network with room for innovation and adaptation.
An expanded offer should also target priority improvement areas like early years and special educational needs and disabilities, scaling up proven, evidence-informed interventions to build capability across the whole system.
Targeted intervention
And teachers working in schools facing the biggest challenges should receive the greatest level of support. Places on all government programmes should always be free to access for educators working in challenging contexts, and capacity grants made available to remove barriers to taking part, such as cover costs.
The result would be a professional development entitlement that works at system level, institution level and individual level.
This will pave the way for a continuously improving system of empowered teachers and school leaders, breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child.
Marie Hamer is executive director for strategy and impact at Ambition Institute
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