As someone who spends a lot of time working with school leaders to design and deliver CPD, one of my favourite questions to ask is: “How do you know if your CPD is having an impact?”
It is a question that is rarely given as much thought as it deserves.
Evaluations of CPD tend to rely on feedback from those attending the session, which is gathered straight after it has been delivered. Attendees will record if they enjoyed the session and felt it was useful, and what they thought about the quality of the presentation.
These points are all interesting in their way, but they don’t tell you if the session worked. Did it actually contribute towards anyone’s continuing professional development?
This question really matters, because providing CPD has an opportunity cost. The time of teachers and leaders is valuable. A leader may spend hours putting together an after-school session - time that could have been spent on a multitude of other jobs that keep a school running smoothly.
Then there is the cost of the time of those attending the session. A hundred teacher hours may be sat in that hall; that’s 100 hours that could have been spent planning lessons or giving feedback on work.
How do we know if CPD is working?
It’s important to establish the impact that CPD has, but doing so is difficult. An improvement made for students in Year 7 may not reveal itself in published outcomes for another five years. Even then, it is often impossible to determine which of a school’s many moving parts was responsible for any improvement, or regression, in outcomes.
This is why I’d suggest setting out success criteria for any CPD at a range of timescales before the CPD takes place.
First, we need a baseline. This is our reason for deciding that this CPD was needed in the first place. For example:
- Learning walks show that two-thirds of lessons are slow to start owing to pupil disruption.
- Pupil voice reveals that pupils struggle to retain procedural knowledge in many subjects.
- A review of 51 records shows that there have been no logs following pupils arriving in school with visible physical injuries.
Having set the base line that reveals the problem, we can consider the changes that we should see in the following weeks, months and years.
That week
There will hopefully be some changes that will be observable in the first week following a CPD session. These will probably be changes in the knowledge and behaviour of the teachers. For example, learning walks may show that teachers are greeting pupils at the door and having positive interactions to help them settle into a meaningful task.
A follow-up staff survey may show that teachers are now more confident in the definition of procedural knowledge and the opportunities they have to develop it.
You may also see a rise in people logging into your 51 platform to check that they can access it.
That month
Over the following month, we might see changes in the behaviour and knowledge of pupils. Pupil voice might reveal that pupils are finding their lessons less disrupted and behaviour logs and learning walks might back this up.
We might see evidence in pupil books that they are doing more deliberate practice of procedural knowledge and internal assessment data might reveal greater fluency in demonstrating a range of subject-specific skills.
In terms of 51, we will hopefully see a rise in staff logging when pupils present with injuries sustained out of school.
That year
After a year, with a well-planned curriculum for CPD, we should start to see changes in the culture of the school. The consistent starts to lessons might improve punctuality to lessons and reduce internal truancy.
Homework might be better used to include a greater use of independent practice of procedural knowledge based on assessment feedback.
Staff might demonstrate greater awareness of their role in the wider culture of 51 in the school.
By setting out success criteria for CPD alongside its planning, leaders and external providers are holding themselves accountable for its impact. This isn’t an easy process, but it’s one that is essential for sustainable school improvement.
Mark Enser is a freelance writer and former HMI
