7. Personal and Institutional Development

One of the tensions that exists when considering CPD needs and priorities and how to meet them is that between individual and institutional or organisational needs. Both have legitimate claims on the resources available for CPD. As has been noted if the school is developing into a learning community/organisation many needs can become common across a range of teachers and there can be a blend of individual and organisational solutions. The Teacher's Agreement assumes a greater amount of responsibility and professionalism including the empowerment of individual teachers to working collegially and collaboratively but to have a degree of personal control or autonomy over their own development in the context of working with other colleagues, school management and EA officers; all of whom are now collectively accountable for 'delivering' the National Priorities and various improvement plans.

How is this teacher autonomy and responsibility working out in practice?

West Lothian is developing strategies for future CPD

Empowerment KeyEmpowerment Key

Colin Hutcheon, West Lothian
"There are all these different strands that are developing simultaneously and some of them are quite new and, therefore, it sometimes can be difficult to just retain that kind of broader overview of what the total impact and the like is. But I think, in West Lothian, they have developed a longer-term strategy based on a particular view of what they felt McCrone was really saying..."

Andrew outlines the nature of autonomy and curriculum leadership by all staff

The Autonomous ProfessionalThe Autonomous Professional

Andrew Sutherland, Meldrum Academy
"I believe that the post-McCrone world - I've used the expression many times in here - of autonomous professional and I do reinforce with teachers that 'You are responsible. You are experts. You are graduates. You are professionals. You are highly trained. You do not need you Principal Teacher to tell you continually what to do'..."

Lynne describes the pattern and support required to develop the use of ICT in Teaching as an example

CPD Needs and StrategiesCPD Needs and Strategies

Lynne Horn, Tobermory High
"One of the things that we have done through 'Partners in Excellence' is provided training for staff after the initial technology was given out to schools. In school, I think, one of the things that has to be here is there has to be a supportive school...."

'One size fits all' approaches to CPD that do not have opportunities for alternative learning are not effective according to a CPD provider of courses, materials and activities:

Flexible approachFlexible approach

Ian Smith
"I think one of the things that makes staff development successful is that it needs to link to teachers' real needs and concerns. I think a lot of the staff development we've had in the past seems to have been done to teachers..."

Institutional Needs as opposed to the personal. Some comments from a school headteacher:

Andrew Sutherland outlines the approach to team structures which lead all activities in the school and provides focus for professional development.

New Management StructureNew Management Structure

Andrew Sutherland, Meldrum Academy
"The first thing I wanted to do was try and create teams in the school rather than have the old fashioned structure of the Head, Deputes, AHTs, PTs and so on. So, after quite a lot of thought; discussion; debate, I decided to go for four teams..."

Andrew Sutherland goes on to outline the strategic approach to CPD in the school

CPD StrategyCPD Strategy

Andrew Sutherland, Meldrum Academy
"In terms of CPD, interestingly the CPD requirements were not so much about how to develop course materials, because most teachers had good expertise in that already, and by giving the resources, in terms of the time or the money, they were actually quite willing to do that..."

An EAs strategic CPD response to the individual/organisational need debate

West Lothian is developing strategies for future CPD

McCrone 21st Century AgreementMcCrone 21st Century Agreement

Colin Hutcheon, West Lothian
"So, there clearly is an attempt to pull these things together a bit more than we did in the past to try and ensure the individual's CPD programme is fairly directly related to their practice in the classroom and will have a positive impact on the learning experiences for pupils, rather than just allowing people to identify all sorts of a variety of CPD needs, which maybe don't have a direct impact..."