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Cliff Jones, editor of CPD Update magazine, gives his views on the new national standards and professional learning.
In the past, standards were often regarded simply as hurdles to be climbed over when applying for a job or promotion and then forgotten about. They were not a basis for making continuous sense of professional life.
Now things are to be different. The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) has produced new standards which it describes as ‘a lever for CPD’. These standards are part of a package for professional learning that is slowly coming together.
The danger for the profession is that the CPD package might be a box into which teachers have to climb and shut the lid. The danger for government, however, is that it is a Pandora’s Box and from it will emerge thinking professionals in thinking schools: thinking for themselves, that is.
So what is in this CPD package? What will school CPD policies have to take into account?
So far we can assume that the package will include:
Will performance management reviews simply establish a quick and simplistic list of targets when they should be about needs?
Establishing professional needs is not straightforward. Will there be a fair balance of individual professional needs with those that emerge from school or government policy? Sometimes teachers think they are talking about their own professional learning needs when all they are really doing is working out how to do what they are told.
You can set yourself up for failure if you have not asked how much power you have to affect the outcomes of plans for professional learning. Targets can be sterile. Instead of encouraging development they can close down options and alternatives. Unfortunately we are beset by a culture of target setting that, instead of emphasising professional learning, measures how close you get to a target.
Why is the word 'lever' used about the standards?
Levers involve the use of force and a fulcrum. In England performance management and professional standards are linked with pay, pay progression and promotion. This discourages teachers from revealing, discussing and learning from their mistakes. The other countries of the UK do not make this link.
Will it still be possible for people working to one standard to work collaboratively on a project with others who operate to different standards?
If teachers are only looking for evidence that matches their standard we could have a problem. Real professional learning is full of unexpected evidence for unintended outcomes. How do you think penicillin was discovered? The further question is: ‘Will the performance management review process encourage collaborative professional learning across standards or do we have to put up with limited, sterile compliance?’
So it is for the profession itself to make sure that the standards are milestones not millstones.
What do you think? Email Connect with your views: connect@gtce.org.uk
You can also contact Cliff at: cliff@optimuspub.co.uk.
