6. Professional Development and Review
The national agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century confirms the contractual context and obligation by teachers with respect to professional review and development. The Agreement confirms that "teachers shall have an ongoing commitment to maintain their professional expertise through an agreed programme of continuing professional development". It continues by stating that "every teacher will have an annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) plan agreed with her/his immediate manager and every teacher will be required to maintain an individual CPD record". In addition "teachers [will be] expected to meet the full commitment of an additional 35 hours per annum for CPD".
The Agreement then confirms that CPD activity should be "based on an assessment of individual need, taking account of school, local and national priorities". The list of headteacher duties in Annex B of the Agreement includes a responsibility "to promote the continuing professional development of all staff and to ensure that all staff have an annual review of their development needs". You can consider the document Professional Review and Development 2002 at the SEED website or by downloading the following PDF
Professional Review and Development 2002http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/prd-01.asp
Professional Review and Development 2002Professional Review and Development 2002
Aspects of Review
How one teacher's self esteem was boosted on having produced some materials for all her colleagues to use after a review session which identified this curriculum development of materials as a form of CPD for her.
Religious EducationReligious Education
Logans Primary, North Lanarkshire
"...I suppose coming back in now and being asked to do something like that I just didn't think I had the ability - I didn't feel I had the confidence. And as I look back it's been good because I know how much everybody else has benefited from it. But I think even from a personal point of view, I got a tremendous thrill out of doing it because at the end of it I realised, well I was able to do it..."While individual review can lead to appropriate and agreed development opportunities, CPD needs can be identified differently and in this same school, the whole school community is involved in CPD needs analysis.
Logans Primary, North Lanarkshire
"Schools need to explore their own options for staff development based on an analysis of needs. Various stakeholders in the school community can contribute to both the needs analysis and the design of staff development. The Staff Development planning context includes classrooms, teachers, pupils, parents, school management, support systems [and] legislation...."Doing positive self-evaluation is seen as much more constructive than external inspections not only in Scotland through HGIOS but also in other parts of the UK too.
Caroline Ezzatt, Oaklands
"The reason why I really liked this is because it was very constructive. Because instead of aiming in on our weaknesses, we decided what our weaknesses were and we kind of, you know, we came up with realistic targets..."The benefits of conducting an internal review, using colleagues as critical friends, are articulated by teachers from a school in inner London, while some minor reservations about this are also shared in the following audio extracts:
Dave Christie, Oaklands
"I think the system is on the whole useful , what it does particularly is it makes the whole idea of being inspected less daunting so basically the whole idea of the big issue of the ofstead inspection isn't such a big issue if you are being monitored every lesson every two years..."
Dave Christie, Oaklands
"I think there is a big need for the department to feel that you have been given something by doing it and there is a slight concern that if you have got people who are working alongside you, as I said before, are not experts in your field there could be a feeling that what have I gained here other than someone slapping me on the back and saying that you seem to be doing quite well here..."A teacher's views on their internal monitoring and review system which used lesson observation and critical friends
Dave Christie, Oaklands
"I think the key thing is that it does run smoothly and that when you set up meetings and teachers know that they are going to be observing they are observed, now in a school things can happen on a daily basis which make that problematical, for my evaluation it went smoothly there weren't problems with that..."Some thoughts on the stresses and advantages attached to reviewing and being reviewed by colleagues follow:
Judith Caldeira, Oaklands
"...I do get nervous; I do get nervous, but it is a necessary thing. I just think that when you are on your own and, you know, if you actually have somebody else, even if it's somebody else in the department, and they can watch you and say, "Well look, actually this bit worked and this bit I felt didn't." You take it on the chin and say, 'right - well then - I've got to deal with that'..."Departments are given ownership of their review processes and no longer feel it is something that is being done to them
Jo Dibb, Oaklands
"The outcome of the review was a leadership team thing and you got on with doing what they wanted you to do. I think what's fundamentally different is that it gives the control back to the departments..."This teacher describes the benefits she feels she has derived from being observed by colleagues. She also talks about the results of a questionnaire administered to her pupils to solicit their opinions about her subject
Kerry Tunks, Oaklands
"...In terms of the questionnaires it was very interesting because I assume, I mean it's very difficult from questionnaires you don't know whether the kids are telling the truth or not but I've always assumed that a lot you know, well the reasons that I think kids don't pick GCSE came up very differently on their questionnaire forms..."Teachers are much happier being given opportunities to be self critical and feel that this is a more constructive form of staff development than being inspected in a formal way
Kerry Tunks, Oaklands
"...If you are looking for answers or you are looking for advice and if you have chosen that focus yourself then you prepare yourself for the criticism that is going to come with it whereas if it is just a general inspection on everything I think people do start to feel quite attacked and vulnerable whereas this is a way of actually picking something that is a problem..."Challenging Aspects Of Review
Giving departments the responsibility for conducting their own review and monitoring is seen as more difficult to organise and administer than a top down approach run by the senior management. As a consequence more forward planning is needed
Mike Kimber, Oaklands
"...I don't think I've realised how much monitoring of it that needs to be and my role in monitoring that everybody is doing what they should be at the right time and that the reports are written, it is actually quite you know, when we were doing sort of top down ones and the leadership team were going in it was much easier you know to monitor, we knew what was happening, one of us would write the report - much easier!..."The line managers have a responsibility to keep departments' review and monitoring actions in line with the school's development plan
Mike Kimber, Oaklands
"Obviously it is important that the departmental's self evaluations fit in with the structure of the whole school development plan and obviously having the line managers involved in the process does mean that we can kind of keep an eye on things and if the department was focusing on something completely off beam and we felt as a leadership team that they ought to be focusing on something more relevant to the school development plan..."Raising achievement in Edinburgh City is a key strategy several initiatives target achievement including aspects of the review process
Margaret Alcorn, Edinburgh City
"We would expect in the run-up to the professional review interview, that the teacher does a self-evaluation exercise. In fact that would be part of ongoing practice, it wouldn't just be a one-off. And they would come to the interview having identified for themselves areas where they feel they have strengths and where they would like to celebrate their success, but also some indication of perhaps where there are development needs..."A teacher gives his reactions to the prospect of being reviewed by a critical friend and expresses some views on the choice of critical friends
John Muir, St Margaret's
"I was quite concerned about it when it was muted I think. It was a bit unknown, we were a bit concerned, we weren't very sure at all, it wasn't an inspection. At least I suppose with an inspection you either pass, fail and you know you're not going to have it again for the next ten years. But it was basically the same as an inspection as far as we were concerned in the beginning I think, we all expected..."A review example from Uphall Primary School indicating an on-going and linked process rather than a one-off formal interview experience.
Lesley Cameron, Head Teacher of Uphall Primary School, and Greg Welsh, P1 teacher at Uphall Primary School, meet to have a periodic review of progress
Lesley Cameron and Greg Welsh
"One of the areas that I've been spending a lot of time in is in developing the staff, having the staff taking more responsibility for developments in the school. And Greg has certainly done that this year. Greg has been here for a year; this is his first year in school; and it's also his first year as a P1 teacher..."
"We had a mid-session meeting; and we talked about what you felt you had learned so far in the school. And that was important because as a new member of staff, I wanted to find out what your feelings were, and what you felt your needs were as well..."
"Alongside you coming to grips with having a stage you'd never had before and learning all about the early stages, and play and all of these things, you were also taking on school developments, because we were very keen to develop, for example, our eco schools..."
Buddying Scheme Meeting - updating the position on development targets related to work
"Now the other thing which I was very keen for you to develop was the buddy scheme between Primary 1 and Primary 7. Now that didn't get off the ground until quite late..."
Building Capacity, Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
