Hilary Spencer, CEO, Ambition Institute
Professional development is absolutely crucial – investing in teachers’ knowledge and skills is not only critical for children’s outcomes, but staff are happier, more motivated, and more likely to want to stay in their roles.
However, we’ve always been passionate advocates for high quality professional development, so you shouldn’t just take our word for it!
Studies have often shown that teachers feel more satisfied in their roles and are more likely to stay in their jobs when they regularly access high quality training.1 An Education Policy Institute report in 2021 found that providing teachers with a right to high quality training and development would boost pupil attainment and earnings, and may tackle retention problems.2
Even more recently, in 2023, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) conducted a rapid review of the evidence base, and found three main leadership approaches that work: (i) prioritising teacher development; (ii) building relational trust; and (iii) improving working conditions.3 Crucially, it recommended professional development for leaders as the lever for achieving the second and third of these.
At Ambition Institute, we are lucky to work with schools up and down the country, working with over 40% of state-funded schools across England. That includes national programmes delivered to tens of thousands of people, but also working with an increasing number of Trusts to co-design specific solutions for their workforces – all with a focus on supporting children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
One of our key reflections is that more and more people are taking professional development seriously, and see it as a fundamental part of how they will keep getting better.
In less than a decade, system leaders have gone from calling for better professional development for new teachers, to the roll-out of an evidence-based new programme that will have been completed by 75,000 early career teachers by this summer. If we add to that the 100,000 people who will have completed a national professional qualification in that time, that is equivalent to a third of all teachers in England now with a shared foundation of knowledge and skills.
Ofsted has just published its second review of professional development, and found that ECTs and those studying an NPQ, including school leaders, are much more satisfied with their training than others. We hear more and more education leaders talking of reaching a tipping point, where a sufficient proportion of their staff have participated in these ‘golden thread’ programmes that the positive effects start cascading through their trusts. People describe to us the value of more people having a shared understanding of the evidence base, a common language to describe their work, and a tangible sense of their own improved practice as professionals.
Of course, all of this is only possible because of the amazing people working in schools and trusts, investing time and energy in their people through what has undoubtedly been – and continues to be - a really challenging time for schools. We think this is something we should all celebrate: it's been a key shift, and it shows what we can all do together to support our workforces.
Turning to the future, approximately 80% of school budgets are spent on staff. Realistically, it seems unlikely that school budgets are going to increase significantly in the near future. So as we look ahead, one of the key questions for all of us is how can we make the most of the talent and capability that we have in our system? How can we support those one million adults working with children in school settings to do the very best for the children in their care?
It seems clear that creating the conditions where our teachers, our leaders and our wider staff can thrive is going to be essential.
Professional development is most effective in a school culture in which teachers feel supported, valued, and trusted; where the purpose of the professional development aligns with the individual’s goals; and where leaders have thought carefully about how to protect the time needed to engage in professional development.4
Trusts are well placed to control these factors and many are already striving to build the culture and conditions for professional development. We are seeing through our delivery of ECF and NPQs an increasing number of teachers and leaders telling us that their school or trust supports them with dedicated time to complete their independent study.
And because school and trust leaders are brilliant problem solvers and innovators, of course many great things are also happening beyond the national ‘golden thread’ programmes.
For instance, Dixons Academies Trust makes sure that allteaching and support staff receive coaching, signalling their commitment to professional development as a key lever to school improvement. Academies Enterprise Trust’s new ‘Individual Development Account’ initiative allocates £100,000 to each school leader over five years, with an aspiration to offer 100 hours of quality CPD every year.
Some trusts are thinking strategically about how to carve out the time and space for their staff to engage in CPD within working hours – either collaboratively or individually, for example by identifying days to bring people together nationally or regionally for professional development, or to bring subject disciplinary communities together to collaborate. Others are thinking about how they can work together across several schools to maximise access to existing expertise, for instance by developing a pool of specialists across a trust or within central teams and deploying them strategically.
So our collective challenge is: what can each of us and all of us be doing so that every teacher and school leader has access to high quality professional development? The evidence is clear that this makes people feel supported, motivated, and better equipped to deal with the many challenges and joys of working in education.
We are looking forward to discussing all of this more at the summit, where we will be able to share some examples where people are doing this well and innovating to help move things forward. We hope that sharing ‘the art of the possible’ will help inspire us all.
[1] Factors affecting teacher job satisfaction: a causal inference machine learning approach using data from TALIS 2018 (tandfonline.com)
[2] The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students: A cost-benefit analysis - Education Policy Institute (epi.org.uk)
[3] Reviewing the evidence base on school leadership, culture, climate and structure for teacher retention’
[4] Professional development in School Trusts: Capacity, conditions, and culture (cstuk.org.uk)
The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
