National Institute of Teaching launches major new consultation on CPD
The National Institute of Teaching has today launched a major consultation to bridge gaps in the research on professional development for teachers and teacher-leaders.
The consultation, which will run for eight weeks, will take the form of a five-minute survey and several face-to-face events with teachers, school leaders, education researchers, and professional development providers.
We want to understand the questions about professional development that are keeping them awake at night.
For example, when is it better to engage with professional development during the school day and when is it better to run twilights? Do the same professional development design principles apply at all stages of teachers' and leaders' careers? Or do they change with seniority or experience?
We’ll use the insights gathered by the project to inform our choices about the type of research we conduct. We’ll publish this school-led research agenda in autumn 2023.
Calum Davey, Executive Director of Research and Best Practice, said: “Our aim is to improve pupil outcomes by ensuring that the children in our schools have access to the best quality teachers, across the sector.
“But the research base which informs our professional development needs to be stronger. There is a lot we can learn about what’s effective in teacher training and development. There are some big gaps. We often look to evidence from the USA to bridge these gaps, but research insights can be tricky to translate between settings.
“We want to generate research outputs that are genuinely useful to everyone involved in training and developing teachers and leaders, and that make a tangible and sustainable difference to how teachers teach and how leaders lead.”
At the National Institute of Teaching, we want a school system that nurtures the talents of teachers and leaders at all stages of their careers so they can provide the world-class education children deserve.
We want to spend our time and energy answering questions that will be useful. We want to be a bridge between those who are embedded in the research, and those who use research to inform how they train and support teachers and school leaders. For example, in our ECF programme, we have wellbeing check-ins at the beginning of each online session to see if there are consistent patterns with workload or attitudes, which we can then feed into our programme design.
Calum added: “Our aim is to build on the excellent work that’s come before, for the benefit of teachers and leaders everywhere – and, most importantly, through them to the ultimate benefit of their pupils.
“This consultation is the first step in that journey. We need to hear from the people closest to the classroom and to running schools to understand the questions about professional development that are keeping them awake at night.
“So please fill in our survey, share it with your colleagues or come to one of our events. We’ve streamlined our questions to be respectful of your time.”
You can find the survey here Professional development - What are your questions?
You can also sign up to our events: