On the importance of Subject-Specific CPD

As a school leader, one of my biggest responsibilities is ensuring that my staff have access to the highest quality continuing professional development (CPD) - not just for their own benefit, but ultimately of course for the greater good of pupils' educational progress which in turn is entirely intertwined with the development of high-quality learning and teaching in the classroom. This is an exciting and interesting part of my job. In my twelve years of senior leadership and twenty years of teaching, I have witnessed CPD in many forms and guises, including CPD offered by the Education Authority and local exam board, CPD undertaken by external companies on behalf of a school, in-house CPD, online CPD, PRSD, Research Lesson Study, Microsoft training, Apple, Capita, etc, etc. In relation to CPD, I am now coming to the following conclusions:

1: There must be a greater balance between general pedagogy CPD and subject-specific CPD - the latter is potentially under valued. For the purposes of clarity, subject-specific CPD for me relates to CPD aimed at developing teachers' subject-specific knowledge, as well as developing best practices in delivering subject-specific concepts in the classroom;
2: Northern Ireland must catch up quickly with its counterparts in relation to research-based CPD;
3: CPD for school leaders must improve urgently;
4: The Northern Ireland Learning Leaders' Framework must become fit-for-purpose.

In this blog, I will explore the first in more detail - notably the need for greater balance subject-specific CPD and generic pedagogy CPD.

I have recently really enjoyed Mary Myatt's book on the curriculum, with the rather curious title 'The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence'. I would recommend it for any school leader or teacher interested in curriculum design. In the book, Mary talks about the importance of CPD, and states: 'It is important that the development of subject knowledge moves up the pecking order of competing school priorities.' I concur with this. The Coe, Aloisi, Higgins and Major paper on 'What makes Great Teaching' for the Sutton Trust in 2014 identifies teacher subject knowledge as the factor which has potentially one of the greatest impacts on student outcomes. And yet, it strikes me that the development of teachers' subject knowledge and affording staff time and opportunities to keep abreast of academic developments in their disciplines has been well down the pecking order of our priorities. It is probably the case that schools in Northern Ireland do less CPD aimed at refreshing and enhancing teachers' subject knowledge than 'generic' CPD. There must be a better balance.

Whilst generic pedagogy CPD is important, what is focused upon under the umbrella of generic CPD is at times sadly completely off the mark. Mary Myatt puts it quite aptly when she writes: 'There have been unholy contortions trying to fit generic skills into the highly diverse subject structures; again, a mistake to think that progress looks the same across all subjects'. Centralised curriculum changes led to a plethora of poor CPD for teachers - some of which I have sat through myself. I am not blaming anyone for this, and certainly not the instructors, as such training was quite simply 'de jour' at the time and there was a belief that we should all be implementing such things in the classroom. However this CPD has included the clear mistake and the 'unholy contortion' of trying to demonstrate to teachers how to shoehorn so-called cross-curricular skills (Using Maths, Communication, Using ICT) and 'thinking skills and personal capabilities' (which if they exist are almost certainly biologically primary) into (biologically secondary) lessons in the classroom. How many of us have sat through CPD demonstrating how to share skills-based learning intentions and success criteria, or how to build in strategies for peer and group work? How many of us have sat through CPD where we have been given 'cut-outs' and told to undertake a task as a child is expected to do using cut-outs to 'stimulate thinking' and discussion? There is absolutely no evidence I am aware of that CPD which focuses on generic or transferable skills plays its part in enhancing strong learning outcomes.

We must look around the world for better approaches to CPD. Are Singapore and Hong Kong (and Finland in Europe) consistently at the top of PISA tables for CPD which focuses on soft skills? Absolutely not. It is essentially geared towards teacher knowledge, subject-specific CPD and a centralised, consistent and highly coherent approach to generic pedagogy CPD. It strikes me that in those countries, teacher subject knowledge is the holy grail. Initial Teacher Training organisations in such countries are highly selective. Indeed, in Finland teachers are required to have Masters Degrees in their discipline. Additionally, as Lucy Crehan explains in her excellent book 'Cleverlands', in Singapore for example the CPD system is not primarily deregulated to individual schools as may be the case in the UK, but rather is primarily centralised, consistent and coherent. Each new teacher is assigned a mentor who works with them in  weekly meetings, and most receive a subject-specific book tailored to individual schools which includes lesson objectives, common misconceptions pupils have about topics, suggested questions to get them thinking, assessment questions and suggested activities.

Therefore, alongside the value placed in teacher subject knowledge, they have as much as 100 hours of CPD per year which also affords them the time and space to explore how really valid general pedagogical principles can translate into a subject-specific context in the classroom. Quite often, our own CPD happens 'in a bubble' - a day here and there - with no time to explore in any depth implications for our respective disciplines. This is why I really like Research Lesson Study as a CPD model (no surprise it originated in Asia!) as it allows for just that - teachers working collaboratively with time and scope to explore general pedagogy and how it translates into subject-specific contexts.

Sadly CPD (in Northern Ireland at least) is either far too instrumentalist in its approach or the general pedagogy extolled is removed from the really important general pedagogy rooted firmly in evidence-based research, such as retrieval practice / formative assessment . The new GCSE specifications have led to a justifiable clamour from teachers for training at 'Agreement Trails' or specification-related courses. Whilst somewhat important, they are essentially instrumentalist and even administrative, lacking both a focus on high-quality learning and teaching in the classroom and an emphasis on the development of a teacher's subject knowledge. Additionally, the false premise held by the Northern Ireland Curriculum that so-called generic and transferable skills straddle all subjects and areas of learning has led to much questionable CPD with no real root in evidence-based research. This has included training on thinking skills and personal capabilities and transferable use of ICT across the curriculum. I remain very concerned about current training, not least on growth mindset. Whilst I would argue that there are processes a school can develop implicitly in order to raise aspiration and self-esteem of pupils and ultimately a growth mindset, there is little evidence (that I at least am aware of) to suggest that explicit exposure to so-called growth mindset techniques has an effective impact on pupil learning outcomes.

Additionally, it is also my view that the curriculum places too much emphasis on engagement of pupils. This has been further exacerbated by some really quite poor research emanating from our local ITT providers, not least in the area of portable technology which appears to prioritise pupil engagement as a pre-cursor to high-quality learning. Again, Mary Myatt puts this well in her book when she states: 'It is fair to say that parts of the sector have been seduced by ephemera or showy lessons which may or may not have had substance, a misplaced focus on whether pupils were engaged and what it would take for them to be engaged. What followed from this was that many lessons were distorted in order to produce pseudo 'wow' factors, superficial activities which valued whizziness over substance, prettiness over content and 'box office' over scholarly work.' I recognise our Northern Ireland Curriculum in her statement. As a teaching profession, we must shift our mindset through CPD to recognise that - actually - engagement and motivation stem from success, not the other way around. In order for pupils to experience success, they must have the sense of achievement at a subject-specific level.

Having said that, there are some encouraging emerging developments, not least Janet Goodall's CPD in Maths and a focus on Maths Mastery which my Head of Maths attended and which gave me great heart.

So where does this leave me as a school leader? Firstly, it is my clear ambition from now on to prioritise some subject-specific CPD for my staff, with the aim of affording teachers opportunities to update and develop their subject knowledge and the pedagogy of how it translates in the classroom, because this - in turn - may have the strongest impact in the classroom alongside really valid general pedagogy CPD such as retrieval practice. I intend to use the CPD Quality Audit from the Teacher Development Trust with my Senior Leadership Team to identify opportunities for more subject-specific CPD, and I intend to ring fence funds to allow teachers and departments to subscribe to high-quality subject-specific courses and online publications. Evidence, not least from Lucy Crehan's book, suggests that dedicated and structured time is an essential element of any successful CPD strategy. This is no surprise, but is clearly a challenge within the constraints of our education system. This is a challenge which as a school leader, I accept, will have to be addressed. Dylan Wiliam wrote that every teacher for their turn needs to accept two things: The first is that everyone commits to getting better, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better, and when teachers do their job better, their students will be healthier, live longer, and contribute more to society. The second is that every teacher needs to get better at the things that the best available evidence shows has the biggest impact on student achievement.'  Let's focus on these things, not least retrieval practice and low-stakes formative assessment, and let's give teachers time and scope to do it well and to explore in depth how it translates into their subject. And let's also redress the balance so that subject-specific knowledge and pedagogy gets more emphasis.