Online Learning Overview:

Needs Analysis and Evaluation: Planning Evaluation-Informed Professional Development

An online learning module that guides you to focus on the impact of professional learning.

Are you:

  • a school leader worried about whether your CPD is having any impact on teaching and learning?
  • spending significant budget on professional development but unclear what difference it’s making?
  • facing an Ofsted inspection soon and unsure how to evidence impact?
  • trying to work out where to focus your CPD efforts next year?

 

Focus your thinking with this 90 minute, self-paced module.

Why is this important?

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 based on real need within your school, and that you’ve thought hard about how you’ll measure its success. They want to know that you have given thought to what to do if it isn’t working, and what changes you might make to correct that.

But designing evaluation into your CPD doesn’t just satisfy inspectors. Schools that know what’s working see higher-quality teaching, more confident spending decisions, staff who understand why they’re learning, and year-on-year improvement in what actually matters.

In this module, you’ll work through what evaluation-informed CPD looks like, how to build it without adding to workload, and what practical shifts could help you move from activity to genuine impact.

You’ll discover how to think about evaluation differently; instead of a bolt-on at the end of a training day, it becomes something that shapes what you choose to invest in. You’ll also learn how to gather the evidence that matters to governors, to inspectors, and to you: so you can be confident about where to put your energy next.

What you’ll explore

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:

  • Frameworks grounded in research: You’ll explore how priorities translate into learning activities; how to protect time and how different elements reinforce each other.
  • Case studies from real schools: You’ll see how schools have thought through coherence; what they tried, what worked, what they’d do differently.
  • Reflection activities: We create space to think through where your school is now, where you want greater clarity, and what one shift would help. You’ll leave with actionable thinking, not just knowledge.
 
“The module appears to have been designed carefully with cognitive load in mind. In each topic area, the content is broken down quite well. I particularly like the ‘glimmer’ approach. The combination of explanation, relevant citations and bullet points are useful in directing learner attention to key concepts.”
 Kalayda Kadir, Deputy Headteacher
 

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.

Any school leader with responsibility for professional learning: Whether you’re a headteacher, senior leader, middle leader, head of department, or head of year. Whether you’re thinking about how to develop a more coherent approach, or want to clarify the logic of what you’re already doing. Whether you want to explore how your team’s professional learning might feel more aligned and strategic.

Governors: if you want to understand what evaluation-informed CPD looks like so you can engage confidently in conversations about professional learning and its impact.

This module provides foundational thinking. It works on its own, but also works well as preparation for deeper work; whether that’s exploring coherence, building coaching into your approach, or a full diagnostic review of your professional learning.

Built 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 understand their CPD and invest strategically in what works, 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.

Created by Teacher Development Trust

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.

21st October, London, EC2Y 5JU

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.