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The Park School is an 11–16 special school for pupils with complex learning difficulties in Woking, Surrey. This report was written by Paul Walsh, deputy head.
There has been a need to personalise CPD, in the same way that learning is personalised for pupils. Personalised learning means that all staff take responsibility for their own learning journey and actively look for development opportunities.
As a leadership team we wanted staff to engage with their own learning. We also recognised that traditional ways of recording and recognising adult learning in a school are not successful. Having established the necessary operational procedures, cultural change is needed to take place to develop professional learning further.
The Park decided to focus on embedding a CPD culture of ownership, participation and responsibility for personal training and development within the school.
In order to further develop a learning culture the school focused on a number of key areas:
Our CPD philosophy, like that of many schools, is to create a positive learning environment for all stakeholders in the school community. The GTC’s Statement of Professional Values and Practice for Teachers states:
'Teachers continually reflect on their own practice, improve their skills and deepen their knowledge. They want to adapt their teaching appropriately to take account of new findings, ideas and technologies.'
We recognise that the highest standards of teaching and learning are maintained through staff learning, refreshing and updating their skills and knowledge.
Using the Surrey CPD audit tool, the leadership team has developed a programme of training and development that is strongly linked to the school improvement cycle and performance management for all staff. CPD is monitored at an individual and whole staff level. Over the last few years one aspect of the school’s development plan has been related to staff learning and development.
This year the CPD aspect was to build learning potential in staff through coaching, mentoring and action learning. There are a wide range of CPD opportunities. CPD is non-threatening but challenging and often takes staff out of their 'comfort zones'. CPD management takes this into consideration and attempts to create enjoyable learning experiences for colleagues.
There are three strands to the project.
Staff development meetings have been used to develop ‘professional learning portfolios’. We recognised that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to professional record keeping does not work. Staff have individual systems for keeping professional records, and guidelines state that it is the reflective element of them, not the way they are organized, that is important.
We have also made use of active learning sets to develop the use of critical incident analysis in staff development portfolios.
This strand has used INSET time and staff development meetings to develop the coaching and mentoring skills that staff use in their learning and teaching. This has included a particular focus on developing staff's listening and questioning skills.
Staff have had the opportunity to participate in coaching sessions as part of their professional development:
Pupils have observed the learning that staff have been engaging in through assemblies taken by different staff, as well as the regularly updated ‘learning journeys’ notice board, which is displayed in the reception area of the school.
The broad scope of the project has presented challenges in terms of managing all the areas it covered. In particular, we have been challenged to demonstrate the impact of the project.
Although it is being formally evaluated by Sheffield Hallam University, the school has paid particular attention to evaluating the coaching part of the project by creating causation trails to measure impact. And it is always a challenge to engage the small group of staff who remain reluctant learners.
We have been pleased with the inclusivity of the project, which supports the learning needs of the whole staff. This has made it easy to engage staff in the project. There has been an excellent uptake of the offer of coaching and a very positive impact of the coaching process on staff development and personal growth.
It has been great to create opportunities for pupils to see staff learn. Pupils comment that seeing their teachers enjoying their own learning helps them to learn.
One of the most valuable lessons and enduring principles to emerge from the project is that tinkering with operational procedures will not significantly enhance professional learning. It is important to address beliefs, action and opportunity in relation to professional learning. The learning an individual member of staff is engaging in will motivate and inspire them in the classroom.
As a CPD leader it is a privilege to create development opportunities and to celebrate the successes of adults’ learning in schools. Giving staff an opportunity to talk about a piece of action research they have engaged in, or celebrating the completion of an NVQ or MA, are real highlights of the school year.
Are you doing, or planning, similar work to The Park School? What helps or hinders your drive towards developing the CPD culture in schools or local authorities?
Why not share your experiences with connect@gtce.org.uk?
In January 2006 the Park School was selected as one of the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) ‘Testbed’ schools. Testbed is an 18 month project to research, test and evaluate approaches, interventions and innovations that enable schools to develop a culture of learning, where all staff are committed to, and take responsibility for, their own development and the development of other staff.
The project intention was that:
'What we learn from the testbeds will be shared with other schools throughout England so that they can adopt approaches to training and development that have been shown to work well in bringing about lasting change.'
(TDA brief to schools)
The project was planned by the project team in consultation with TDA consultants and researchers from Sheffield Hallam University over two days in spring 2006.
Because we are a small special school the project team comprised the head teacher and two assistant head teachers. Although there is no additional funding for the project we are supported by the Surrey schools workforce adviser. The project is evaluated by Sheffield Hallam University and the TDA is holding conferences to update the participating schools on the project's progress.
A version of this article will also appear in Snapshots: The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Journal of Innovation in Education.
