Evidence shows that powerful CPD helps children succeed and teachers thrive. At the Teacher Development Trust we want to support teachers, school leaders and CPD providers to change and develop their approaches to CPD to ensure that all teachers are engage in CPD that will help their students achieve the best outcomes possible.

Over the coming months, TDT will be launching nationwide research around the way schools and providers organise and engage in CPD. We hope this data and information will give us valuable insight and help frame our next steps of support for teachers and trainers alike.

The first stage of this market research was a short survey which asked teachers and school leaders to describe how the use of external CPD providers is organised in their school. We had a wide range of respondents from primary, secondary and FE schools and colleges across the UK. The results showed that:

  •  The staff involved in identifying CPD needs, finding and choosing CPD providers, and finally approving participation in external CPD, varies greatly from school to school. Some headteachers took sole responsibility for all aspects of finding external CPD, while other decision making processes involved teaching staff, middle leaders, and members of the SLT. Both overall and within phases, there was no common or systematic approach to organise external CPD.
  • Flyers and brochures sent directly to schools and word of mouth among colleagues are still the most common ways of finding CPD providers, with email marketing and local authorities also proving popular. Other channels  included subject associations, school and other professional associations, exam boards and Twitter.
  • Almost one fifth of respondents noted that CPD in their school was either entirely internal, largely internal, or only used CPD providers approved by an academy chain.

How does this compare to your experience of CPD?

Are you surprised by our findings so far?

Do the findings match the way in which you think CPD should be organised?

Share your reactions here: