Innovation in CPD for Teachers and Leaders in Education

by Glynis Frater | Aug 22, 2022 | Coaching, Curriculum, Leadership

Innovation in CPD for Teachers and Leaders in Education

How does continuing professional development (CPD) make a measurable impact on improvements in teaching and learning in your school or college? In this significant week for educators who have GCSE results in their sights this is a question that needs to be an integral part of the analysis of what has worked and what can be improved for next year’s cohort of year 11 and post 16 students and their learning journey so far. For primary schools the same was true a few weeks ago with the publication of the latest SATs results.

The last two and a half years have been tough, we know. The way forward is still uncertain but there is one overriding principle that all of us in education need to focus on; high-quality, innovative and relevant CPD is an essential ingredient in making sure we do the best for the learners who depend on our expertise to equip them with the knowledge and skills they need for the next stage of their learning and their lives. Educators must be continually learning and building their expertise, without this, high-quality educational outcomes can’t realistically be realised.

Relevance a powerful driver for innovation in CPD

Create your own success – know your own learning agenda

Relevance is the first strand that we have focused on in our vision for excellence in our own offer of innovation in CPD for all the schools and colleges we work for. We continually reflect on the content of our materials. We undertake extensive research and we create exceptional and always well-received resources. OFSTED’s ‘Education Recovery Review for Summer 2022‘ reassures me that the courses and programmes we offer are relevant, challenging and informative.
We can support the profession with highly interactive and content-rich materials linked to many of the observations and areas of improvement suggested by OFSTED in this report, let’s take a look.

There are deep concerns about well-being and behaviour from many schools and colleges across the whole of the country. We have two superb webinars to support this well-being theme.
Changing Behaviours – building positive strategies for change and challenge
Creating a Culture of Positive Mental Health in Schools
The pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on those pupils who have SEND or are disadvantaged and they need specialist support to ensure that they are not left behind. Three of our courses look in detail at these concerns and how to find the right strategies for move forward.
Widening Participation for Pupils with SEND
Managing the Pupil Premium to Close the Achievement Gap
Enhancing the Role of the SENCO – creating a culture of inclusion, parity and deep learning
The issue of curriculum narrowing and a lack of curriculum enrichment is raised in all three of the OFSTED briefings from last year. For many schools the sheer need to manage the day to day of absences, pupil behaviour, catch up strategies and staff shortages have meant that developing the right strategies for translating curriculum intent into implementation and defining impact has had to be less of a priority. Our highly praised and deeply well – researched curriculum courses are ready now so that schools can pick up the baton of curriculum change and challenge.
Creating a Consistent, Knowledge Rich & Sequenced Primary Curriculum
Sequencing for Progression and Deep Learning in the Secondary School
Preparing for OFSTED – defining quality, refining curriculum, creating cohesion
Transition particularly from Key Stage 2 to 3 continues to be a concern and has been exacerbated by school closures and a lack of opportunity for partnership working. We have specialists who have worked within this arena for several years and have some highly innovative and empowering solutions to creating seamless learning across the transition divide, see below our highly praised course about transition.
Crossing the Transition Bridge from Key Stage 2 to 3 – creating seamless learning
Another well-documented and continued area for concern is the lack of expertise in subject knowledge linked to the standards within the curriculum of those with a subject leadership role. This is especially highlighted in primary schools and in key stage 3. We have two highly regarded solutions for subject leaders and their teams, firstly
Coaching and Team Building for Subject Leaders
Secondly
Our newly launched Expert Series provides a deep dive into each of the foundation subjects and provides a wealth of resources, materials and expert commentary for the subject leader and his or her team. The subjects covered here are,
Creating the Expert Science Teacher
Creating the Expert History Teacher
Creating the Expert Geography Teacher
Creating the Expert Design Technology Teacher
Creating the Expert Music Teacher
Creating the Expert Art & Design Teacher
Key stage 3 is highlighted as an area for concern. It is ever thus. OFSTED’s report from 2015 Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? highlighted many of the issues that make Key Stage 3 a poor relation and we know from much of the work we have undertaken here that nothing much has changed. For many schools trying to work out how to support exam age pupils means that Key Stage 3 still remains the poor relation. We look at how to change that in our course here.
Key Stage 3 – a vital piece in the curriculum jigsaw
Lastly, school improvement and how this is closely aligned to curriculum planning and implementation comes in for some criticism. We are a leading provider of coaching training for the education profession and we know from our interaction with many schools and colleges that coaching is a powerful driver for change, it creates excellence in leadership, cohesion in teams and is a powerful pedagogy. Building a coaching culture provides the framework for delivering the vision and empowering others to take the baton and make it happen. We have coaching courses for all staff in a school or college.
Have a look at our range of Coaching Webinars
Take a look at our Creating a Coaching Culture section
Sign up for our new Coaching for Leadership programme

Innovative CPD must be sustainable and cost-effective and delivers a high-quality education for all

Innovation in CPD is the second strand we have focused on over the summer holidays in order to create and maintain a CPD offer that is both sustainable and cost-effective.

We are continuing with our on-line webinars but we have made them slightly different with some pre-course reading, a three hour session face to face with one of our expert trainer/coaches and a suite of post-course materials and activities so that those who attend can cascade their learning to others. Below we look in a bit more detail at the relevance of the courses we design and deliver in relation to how research from OFSTED suggests the pandemic has affected learning and improvement and how we need to move forward from here. It is remarkable how closely what we offer aligns.
We are launching our ‘Coaching and Leadership in Education’ programme for leaders who want to develop or enhance their leadership skills and use coaching to strengthen their role and the role of others in the pursuance of excellence and achievement across the school or college
The exciting strand of CPD is our Expert Series for subject leaders. We have created an in-depth and well-researched suite of materials, activities and expertise for those who have responsibility for subject specific learning in the primary phase and key stage 3. More details about these exciting and content rich courses can be found below in the next part of this post.

Why choose Learning Cultures?

Our team have all worked in senior leadership in education
We have an enviable reputation for high quality design and delivery of innovative and highly relevant CPD
We are a research organisation and work closely with many partners to build the best there is in the materials, activities and resources we provide you with
Our coaching in education ethos is a strand through all the work we do and provides us with powerful tools, techniques and models to support the teaching profession
We design our courses and programmes so that the presentations, materials, resources and activities can be cascaded widely to others thus ensuring the training has an impact and is cost-effective and sustainable.