School-Based Professional Development – Does It Deliver The Goods?

Teaching is tough!

In her biography of the poet Sylvia Plath, fellow poet Anne Stevenson relates the distress that Plath suffered during her brief time as a teacher. Her quotes from Plath’s diary reveal her pendulum swing of emotions from when things went well in the classroom to when everything seemed to be falling apart:

‘I am middling good. And I can live being middling good; I do not have advanced degrees, I do not have teaching experience. I have a job teaching … I must face this image of myself as good for myself, and not freeze myself into a quivering jelly because I am not Mr. Fisher or Miss Dunn or any of the others.

I have a good self, that loves skies, hills, ideas, tasty meals, bright colours. My demon would murder this self by demanding that it be a paragon … I can learn to be a better teacher. But only by painful trial and error …

The demon would humiliate me: throw me on my knees before the college principal, my department head, everyone, crying: look at me, miserable, I can’t do it. Talking about my fears to others feeds it. I shall show a calm front & fight it in the precincts of my own self, but never give it the social dignity of a public appearance, me running from it, & giving in to it … I’ll keep myself intact, outside this job, this work. They can’t ask more of me than my best …‘

Sylvia Plath

Stevenson reflects that:

If Sylvia had run crying to the department head or thrown herself on her knees before the college principal, her fellow teachers might have penetrated her veneer and put themselves to some trouble to reassure her. But apparently none of her colleagues, young or old, had the least inkling of her personal distress … No one had told her that teaching is difficult, and beginning as a teacher most difficult of all.

Anne Stevenson, ‘Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath’^[1]

This starkly portrays the tensions and challenges that being a teacher can bring. It also, in turn, poses searching questions – particularly in a recruitment and retention crisis – about how well professional development enables teachers to flourish.

Teachers not getting high-quality professional development

Successive professional development reviews and research reports have reached a clear consensus about what is considered an effective model. Declared, almost as a mantra, is that what works best has the following ingredients: it is school-led, school-based, specifically focused on the classroom and on bringing about improvements in teaching and learning – and in particular those with clear benefits for pupils’ learning outcomes. Some mention the added zest of external input, but again, this should be strategically determined and managed by the school itself.

So, how has this focus on schools doing it for themselves fared? Desirable though this shift away from disparate external courses may have been, has school-based professional learning borne the hopeful dividends? Well, according to a major two-phase review by Ofsted^[2], not very well.

The second phase of the review reported this year that ‘too many teachers are still not getting a high-quality teacher development offer.’ The professional development that schools were providing ‘was piecemeal and not strategically planned to feed into school improvement or teachers’ development priorities.‘ Instead, ‘many schools focused on more short-term ‘crisis management’ forms of teacher development‘ such as safeguarding.

The ingredients of effective teacher development

When identifying the relatively few examples where there was good practice, the report said that there was no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Instead, ‘leaders provided staff with a variety of opportunities, both internally delivered and externally sourced. In doing so, they took account of their wider school context and staff’s individual goals.’ The most effective schools used innovative ways of providing staff with high-quality teacher development. Central to this were three key factors:

• Forward planning, where leaders ensured time and space for quality professional learning, rather than it being squeezed out by other day-to-day demands of the school year;
• Increased flexibility in the variety of professional learning and the range of formats: for example, enabling access for all, including part-time staff;
• Networking and partnerships, where wider collaboration opened up logistic and learning benefits. These included, for instance, schools drawing on additional resources from the MAT (such as supply cover) and the sharing of best practice and learning across a broad range of expertise from many schools.

Above all, the report emphasised the importance of how: ‘Strategic leadership with a long-term focus allowed schools to offer staff a coherent yet responsive programme of teacher development.’

Creating the right climate

These elements certainly feature in the articles of the latest issue of Professional Development Today (PDT 23.4). However, the contributions also pose a provocative challenge to the new professional development orthodoxy which, for instance, seems to demand that all teacher professional development should be solely judged in terms of it delivering better outcomes for children.

One of the most powerful factors in achieving effective school-based professional development is ensuring that it takes place within a strongly established professional learning community culture. In their article, Emma Adams and colleagues show how this was nurtured in their school, supported by a leadership and development programme which helped to transform both school culture and performance.^[3]

Gemma Hewson sees collaboration as being at the heart of such a culture.^[4] She describes her school’s approach, which recognises the contribution of all teachers, regardless of how many years they have been teaching. We gain a rich picture of teachers sharing their individual insights into the techniques found effective in helping children to engage and learn.

Strategy and structure matter

Perhaps one of the big messages to come from Ofsted review is the need for schools to regard professional development as an important priority and as an area that needs to planned, managed and delivered as effectively as other core responsibilities and functions of the school. Fundamental to any management of school-based professional development programmes is how they meet both individual and organisational needs.

Managing the complexity of professional development which fulfils the priorities of whole-school improvement whilst also enriching teams and individuals is the focus of Ruth Luzmore’s research in an all-through school.^[5] Like Gemma Hewson, she also sees this as a collaborative endeavour – but, significantly, not just within the school; whole-school improvement must also draw on the power of professional learning networks.

Professional development within subjects

Much professional development in schools is linked to subject specialism and takes place within subject teams. Yet this tends to be overwhelmed and watered down by administrative business and – reflecting Ofsted’s identified concern – professional development preoccupied by crisis management.

Emma Rawlings Smith and Rebecca Kitchen argue that subject-specific professional development is a neglected area and that it is critical for teachers’ professional growth.^[6] Helpfully, they share practical guidance for teachers, leaders and policymakers on how this can be improved.

Similarly, Angela Jaap, Anna Robb and colleagues focus on the crucial importance of subject professional development in the context of the expressive arts, inveighing against the marginalisation of this vital area of children’s learning.^[7] Sophia Giblin also identifies professional development to foster and support child’s play as another overlooked specialist area.^[8]

Diane Swift draws upon her research within a school Trust to demonstrate that teachers need to access both theories of knowledge and theories of learning when designing coherent curriculum opportunities for pupils.^[9] She shows how the use of subject concepts delivers fundamental benefits for teacher learning and agency, curriculum design and pupil learning.

Professional development tools

Underpinning the positive impact of school-led professional development are, of course, the opportunities teachers and other staff have to engage in quality development activities. As an example, Joe Hallgarten shows how effective action learning sets can be.^[10] Instead of didactic course-based models, they provide a collaborative problem-solving approach where professionals work together to find solutions to real-world practice challenges. Learning from each other and then, ‘in situ’, applying it directly to practice and improved outcomes, can prove a potent mix.

Advances in technology offer new prospects for professional development tools available. Rohan Patel looks at future developments in professional learning when considering the tools and approaches that will be increasingly available as schools leverage the potential of technology and of artificial intelligence in particular.^[11]

Prioritising teacher wellbeing

Improving outcomes, especially for pupil learning, is ultimately a strong context for professional development. However, achieving this may well entail activities which initially concentrate on the teacher and on staff wellbeing.

Back in the early 1990s, Roland Barth argued this by using the image of an aeroplane steward asking adults, in the event of an emergency, to fix to their own air mask before attending to their children. He argues that, similarly, teachers may need to prioritise their own development and welfare in order to then give of their best to their pupils.^[12]

Aisling Walters is adamant that developing a sense of teacher identity should be a fundamental aspect of initial teacher training. Developing as a teacher involves personal and professional explorations of a sense of belonging, vulnerability and openness.^[13]

Kate Mawson confronts head-on the prevailing narrative that professional development should only be seen in terms of direct impact on student learning.^[14] She also makes the case that key purposes for professional development must include supporting career growth, establishing professional identity and fostering a sense of belonging. With this as a foundation, the teacher trauma experienced by Sylvia Plath will hopefully become a thing of the past.

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References

1. Stevenson, A. (1989) Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath. Houghton Mifflin. Boston pp. 115-116.
2. Ofsted (2024) Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools. Phase 2 Findings. Ofsted. Updated May 2024. Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 2 findings – GOV.UK
3. Adams, E.; Chambers, M. and Warnes M. (2024) How To Develop A Powerful Professional Learning Community. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
4. Hewson, G (2024) Putting Collaboration At The Heart Of Professional Development. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
5. Luzmore, R. (2024) How To Meet Everyone’s Professional Development Needs Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
6. Rawlings Smith, E. and Rebecca Kitchen (2024) Why Does Subject-Specific Professional Development Matter? Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4
7. Jaap, A. and Robb, A. with Moscardini. L. and Slattery, E.(2024) Standing Up For Primary Arts Education. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
8. Giblin, S. (2024) Restoring Children’s ‘Right To Play’. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
9. Swift, D. (2024) How Can Subject Concepts Boost Pupil Progress? Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
10. Hallgarten, J. (2024)The Power Of Action Learning For Teachers. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
11. Patel, R. (2024) Supercharging Professional Development Through AI. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
12. Barth, R (1991) Improving Schools from Within: Teachers, Parents and Principals Can Make a Difference. Wiley.
13. Walters, A. (2024) Teacher Identity: Crucial To Becoming An Educator. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.
14. Mawson, K. (2024) Energising Education With Close-To-Practice Professional Development. Professional Development Today Volume 23, Issue 4.