Are you…
This 90 minute, self-paced module will help with that thinking.
Without trust, even the most strategic, thoughtful CPD plans can fall flat. It’s important to build on a foundation of trusting relationships. For professional development to be effective, it relies on staff feeling safe to take risks, being vulnerable with colleagues, being willing to share practice with others, and working in collaboration.
This online learning module is designed to help school leaders understand the importance of building trust in professional development, learn about different models for building trust within a school, and consider how best to implement them in their own setting.
The Ofsted framework now has a stand-alone section that assesses the quality of your school’s ‘professional learning and expertise’. Under the previous framework, CPD was not inspected in its own right, though it was touched upon in the leadership and management section. Now though, inspectors coming to your school will gather evidence to assess whether or not you are meeting this requirement. They’ll want to see that your CPD is rooted in a culture of purposeful collaboration and that leaders establish a strong culture of staff professionalism. This takes time and focus, but it can be hard to know where to start if you’ve not previously had the opportunity to prioritise this.
But building genuine trust doesn’t just satisfy inspectors. Schools with strong professional learning cultures see higher staff engagement, deeper collaboration, better retention, and genuinely transformative professional learning. Staff feel safe to try things, admit what’s difficult, and be vulnerable with colleagues. In this module, you’ll work through what trust actually looks like, how leaders build and model it, and what practical shifts could create the psychological safety your staff need.
At the Teacher Development Trust, we’ve had over a decade of experience working with over 500 schools, supporting teachers and leaders to improve their confidence, skills and expertise in professional development. We help leaders invest their CPD resources wisely.
In a 90 minute session designed to fit into PPA time, we’ll give you the basic tools to be able to build your own coherent CPD plan through:
Once you register for our CPD hub and purchase the module, you can work through it at your own pace. The complete module takes 90 minutes and is designed to fit into PPA time, but you can pause and return whenever it suits you. You’ll have access to your progress and can download your certificate when you finish. Many leaders study it alongside their leadership team or use it to prepare for governance conversations about professional learning.
School leaders with responsibility for professional development or school culture: If you sense that trust is low or collaboration is surface-level, and you want to understand how to shift that.
Middle leaders (heads of department, heads of year, SENDCos): If you want to explore how to build deeper trust and genuine collaboration within your team.
Leaders stepping into their first leadership role: If you want to understand what creates a strong professional learning culture from the start.
This module provides foundational thinking. It works on its own, but also works well as preparation for deeper work; whether that’s building coherence, enabling effective practice, or designing strategic CPD.
Build on Experience
We’re focused on one thing: helping school leaders understand their CPD deeply and invest wisely in what actually works.
We believe in partnership. We believe in evidence. We believe in the humility to keep learning and adapt. We’ve worked with schools and we understand the complexity and the constraints. We’re not external consultants parachuting in with a template. We’re partners who know what it takes to actually change practice.
When leaders do this work well, when they build genuine trust and create the conditions for vulnerable, collaborative learning, schools transform. That’s what drives us.
All Online Learning modules are intended for individual rather than cross-school or trust use. Any certificates of completion will be in the name of the Hub account holder.
The Teacher Development Trust’s insights on what makes great CPD are informed through our close work with education research, as well as our experience of working with over 500 schools on building stronger professional development programmes through the 7 Domains of People-Powered School Improvement
Each module is also shaped by the influential practice of school leaders working in education today, as seen in our case studies.
Join us to explore how leaders can tap into the power of great CPD and create cultures of professional growth that inspire joy and agency.
A one-day collaborative conference bringing together anyone interested in making staff development in education count.