CPD: Protect and thrive

Reduced resources might be a very real prospect, but continuous professional development (CPD) is one of the areas that shouldn’t be seen as an “easy economy”, writes Jeremy Sutcliffe.

Anne McCormick has been a headteacher for 15 years and runs a popular school in Bedford recently rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted inspectors. Like many long-serving leaders she has to guard against the temptation to ease off the throttle, to coast a little, rather than drive on in search of the next challenge.

“When you are an experienced head you have got to look for things that motivate you and I am fortunate my governing body allows me to look both nationally and internationally for opportunities to develop myself and consequently raise the profile of the school,” she says.

For Anne, opportunities such as facilitating international study visits, have proved highly stimulating so it’s not surprising she puts continuous professional development (CPD) for all her staff at the centre of her school.

Queen’s Park Lower School is one-third of the Bedford Full Service Extended School, a partnership that includes a local middle and upper school. It has 564 children aged three to nine on roll and serves a disadvantaged multi-cultural community made up predominantly of Asian families.

With around 80 staff, including 22 teachers, Queen’s Park has the unusual challenge of operating on a split site and is managed by a core leadership team that includes two deputy heads – one in charge of each site – a business manager and a site manager. The school also has a second tier of leaders, each responsible for a year group team and a curriculum subject.

Every year, each member of staff is asked three questions as part of their CPD: what do you hope to achieve in the next year, what do you need to achieve it and where do you see yourself in three years’ time.

“The third question is very helpful because if you have someone who is quite ambitious they can flag that up and we can then give them the support they need. All my team leaders, for example, have been on the National College’s Leading from the Middle programme and senior leaders then have the opportunity to go onto Leadership Pathways and then the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH),” Anne says.

For many leaders CPD remains an inconsistent part of their professional lives. While successful heads like Anne McCormick regard it is an essential entitlement for their staff not everyone gets the opportunities they need to develop their skills and careers fully.

The value of providing high quality CPD has been thrown into sharper focus by the country’s economic situation with schools and children’s centres having to make tough decisions in order to balance their budgets. The temptation for many school leaders may be to cut training budgets, cancel courses and concentrate resources on core activities. But such a response would be misguided, Anne believes.

“I think it would be dangerous to see CPD as an easy economy because without quality professional development you can’t continue to evaluate how your school is doing – the whole process leads into constant reflection and review. It isn’t just an opportunity to go on a course. It’s about changing practice. It’s about making your school as good as it can be and doing that constantly.”

"For many leaders CPD remains an inconsistent part of their professional lives"

Cynthia Knight is another believer in the value of CPD. As director of St Thomas Children’s Centre Birmingham, which provides flexible integrated health and family support and childcare for children aged from birth to eight in one of Birmingham’s poorest districts, she is responsible for the diverse training needs of centre staff and for early years training in the city. With a background as a head, she took on the role of running a multi-agency centre when St Thomas’s opened as an Early Excellence Centre in 2000 and found support from integrated leadership training. She is now lead facilitator on the College’s National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL).

“The unique aspect of the NPQICL is the way in which it’s focused on building up a learning community that enables you to explore your own ideas about leadership, supported by other leaders,” she says. “Within that community there is a huge range of experiences. Leaders need to get out of their own institutions in order to gain insight from other leaders and to explore their ‘critical incidents’ – things that happen in their respective centres – in a safe environment.” While training “off the job” can be life-changing, offering fresh insights and the chance to learn from colleagues who face similar challenges, virtually all the leadership programmes developed by the National College include a strong element of work-based learning.

“It’s really important in a school or a children’s centre for the leadership to have a professional development strategy that allows them to build on their strengths and address gaps by what they do in the work-place,” says Jane Doughty, the National College’s Operational Director of Programme Management.

“This might involve taking on new tasks, doing role swaps, shadowing people and engaging in discussions about what they are learning. As leaders we learn a lot from looking at highly effective leaders, seeing how they do things and incorporating some of those lessons into our own leadership portfolios.”

One of the most high profile programmes developed by the National College is the new DCS Leadership Programme. It is the first of six programmes and initiatives being developed for directors and aspiring directors of children’s services for whom high-level CPD has previously been lacking. The first cohort of 28 serving directors began the year-long course in November.

"I’ve accessed professional opportunities throughout my career and it’s kept me enthusiastic, motivated and passionate"

One of the most popular parts of the programme is a focus on “wicked issues” – complex, intractable issues that directors are likely to face as leaders in the highly challenging field of children’s services. Directors identify issues they are facing in their own areas and work to develop effective strategies to deal with them, working in leadership challenge groups of four or five.

Such collaborative problem solving is already beginning to impact on leadership practice in front-line services. “There’s a lot of early evidence that people are beginning to share and develop what they have learned on the programme with their teams.” Says programme director Aidan Melling.

Chris Hilliard, Director for Children’s Services, Schools and Families for the new unitary authority of Bedford Borough, joined the programme’s second cohort in January and recently completed a three-day residential course.

“The beauty of the course is it offers a combination of developing your theoretical knowledge and your practical understanding, supported by a top quality programme that incorporates intensive residential activities with executive coaching and the chance to explore particular issues with other colleagues,” he says.

For Cynthia Knight, CPD lies at the heart of ensuring high quality public services for children and families. She cites as evidence the Effective Provision in Preschool Education (EPPE) study by London’s Institute of Education in 2003 which found that the more highly qualified teachers were the more their pupils achieved.

She also points to other studies that show the quality of education offered to children is linked to the depth of the leader’s pedagogical knowledge. “I have accessed professional opportunities throughout my career and it’s kept me enthusiastic, motivated and passionate. So it’s absolutely essential to maintain and develop CPD opportunities for all staff and especially leaders.”