Evaluating the Impact of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Teachers expressed high levels of dissatisfaction with CPD events that did
not meet their needs or failed to live up to their expectations.
1.5.c. Needs identification
The developmental needs of staff were most often identified in schools by the
performance management process.
CPD was understood by staff to meet a variety of needs: personal needs,
policy needs and organisational needs. There were sometimes tensions
between these three types of need within a school as the resources available
for CPD tend to be limited.
1.5.d. Headteachers
In interviews, over a third of headteachers expressed concern for their own
CPD, particularly those headteachers who had been at a school for several
years. There was a feeling that CPD for headteachers is often neglected and
is not sufficiently differentiated .
1.6. Role of the CPD Leader
The study found that the evaluation of CPD was usually the responsibility of
CPD leaders who often felt that they had limited experience of evaluation
approaches. Most CPD leaders in the study felt that they were generally not
equipped with the skills and tools to adequately perform the evaluation role.
In most schools in the study the responsibility for CPD was given to a senior
member of staff. If the role was not taken by the headteacher, it was most
often a deputy or a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT).
Headteachers and CPD leaders themselves expressed a need for preparation
for the role of CPD leader. It was suggested that this training needed to come
from experienced CPD leaders.
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