CPD in education benefits hugely from strong foundations in the underpinning research. Starting in April CUREE will be writing a series of articles for the CPD Update magazine that explore some of the latest research in ways that you can engage with and enhance your practice. The first in the series “CPD and curriculum development: natural bedfellows” is written by CUREE’s founder and Chief Executive, Philippa Cordingley. You can read a short extract from her article here. Subsequent editions will focus on issues such as measuring the impact of CPD, engaging support staff in coaching, planning challenge into your lessons, engagement in research linked directly to learner outcomes and much more. Keep your eye on CUREE News for the latest links to articles or subscribe to CPD Update.
As usual in education, the public and political debate about the curriculum is a caricature of reality littered with false polarities – teacher instruction versus child centred learning; skills versus knowledge. Leaders and practitioners know that young people should experience a blend of different approaches but practices can become fixed in a groove and freeing teachers up to look again clearly at how learning really works in complex classroom settings really makes a difference. And the key mechanism for achieving this is CPD – especially in relation to the curriculum. CUREE has assembled a large body of evidence about creating effective curriculum experiences, from international research and empirical research in English schools, in a large three year project. This evidence base offers important and practical messages about the role of CPD in ensuring that curricula of whatever shape result in effective outcomes for young people.
The benefits
We found strong agreement across the international evidence base about the importance for curriculum development of excellence in CPD, particularly in relation to subject knowledge. Students benefited in achievement, attainment and attitudes, but so did teachers in terms of confidence, breadth of curriculum strategies and making appropriate but challenging demands of their students. Our evidence about the practices of schools in England that are effective curriculum innovators highlights the ways that curriculum development is supported through CPD at every stage.
Win-win links between CPD and curriculum development
Aligning CPD and curriculum development through a series of activities and strategies meant that teachers saw CPD as being about doing their day job better and that school leaders saw curriculum development as being about realising school development plans. Such connections had an important and positive effect on ownership building. Effective leaders were actively involved; they modelled both the new approaches and the learning behaviours and outcomes they sought for young people and for their colleagues.
How big is the journey?
Survey evidence from school staff in England suggested that, outside the curriculum-innovative schools, there is some way to go before this virtuous circle of improvement based on linking CPD and curriculum development is established. There is also a disjunction between the perceptions of school leaders, many of whom think that good CPD and curriculum development processes are in place, and their middle leaders who think there is still a distance to travel. This might point up another characteristic of effective leaders in relation to CPD – they have a good awareness of what is actually going on in the school, the obstacles to progress and the strategies necessary for tackling them?
The example of challenge
One of the six key factors ensuring that young people’s curriculum experiences are engaging and produce effective outcomes is establishing appropriate levels of challenge. This seems to be a continuing issue (our student surveys showed up to 25% of students feeling under-challenged). Our work looked closely at why and how this happened. We found that teachers were worried about the risk of turning pupils off learning and that, in some subjects, they feared that students might establish misunderstandings of key concepts. We were also able to highlight a range of strategies for planning and delivering challenging experiences and we are creating a range of development activities and supporting tools to help teachers get to grips with this. Already available is our survey tool which will allow you to benchmark your students' or pupils’ experiences of the curriculum against hundreds of others. Click here for details.
Read the full article in CPD Update or online here (subcribers only)