The focus of this article is continuing professional development (CPD) for serving teachers. The term CPD covers a wide range of staff development activities, both formal and informal, designed to address individual teachers’ development needs and improve their professional practice. CPD activities can include:  

• within-school activities such as coaching, mentoring, support for individual members of staff arising from performance management interviews, team teaching, sharing good practice, lesson observation and feedback, and whole school development activities  
• the sharing of good practice through academy trusts and school networks, which can involve teaching schools (see below)
• external activities such as accredited postgraduate study, conferences, industrial placement or work shadowing, and international study visits and exchanges.  

This article does not cover induction for newly qualified teachers (NQTs), which is a specific period of development lasting three school terms (one academic year). Induction is a statutory requirement and the support NQTs receive during this period of development is addressed in the section on ‘Induction’ in the article on ‘Conditions of Service’. The Government intends to increase induction to two years; see the subheading ‘Consultation on QTS and career progression for teachers’ below for further information.

Organisational aspects 

Legal framework 

All teachers have a professional duty to participate in CPD. The Teachers’ Standards state that a teacher must ‘fulfil wider professional responsibilities’ and ‘take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development, responding to advice and feedback from colleagues’ (p. 13).

The School Teachers Pay and Conditions’ Document (STPCD) sets out a number of specific professional duties which teachers may be required to undertake, including participating in professional development.

The statutory conditions of service for teachers in maintained schools (which do not apply to academies) require teachers to be available for work under the direction of the headteacher for 1265 hours per year, including 5 days when the school is not open to pupils. These 5 days were introduced to support a number of non-teaching activities, including in-service training (INSET), although schools routinely release teachers and leaders for professional learning in addition to this. If CPD is organised within the 1265 hours of annual ‘directed time’ that teachers must work, then they must take part.

Other teachers or ‘cover supervisors’ (the latter receiving a lower rate of pay) may provide cover for teachers undertaking CPD as part of their 1265 annual hours at times when the school is open. Cover is not required when CPD takes place on any of the five days when the school is closed to pupils, nor during ‘twilight’ hours beyond the end of the pupils’ school day, or during school holidays.

There is no legal minimum requirement for the length of time to be spent on CPD, which may take place both within and outside of working hours. 

Performance management 

Performance management arrangements are designed to identify and act upon teachers’ training and development needs. Performance management is informed by the Teachers’ Standards, which define the minimum level of practice expected of teachers from the point at which they train towards being awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) onwards. The Department for Education (DfE) provides a model policy for teacher appraisal. This sets out the framework for a clear and consistent assessment of the overall performance of teachers, and for supporting their professional development within the context of the school’s plan for improving educational provision and performance, and the standards expected of teachers.

The statutory basis for performance management in maintained schools in England is provided by the Education (School Teachers’ Appraisal) (England) Regulations 2012, made under the Education Act 2002, and underpinned by the Teachers’ Standards. An annual appraisal meeting is held to assess the teacher’s performance against the national standards and their personal objectives. Since September 2014, with the commencement of performance-related pay, the outcome of the appraisal has affected whether the teacher progresses within the pay range.

Academies are not bound by the 2012 teacher appraisal regulations, but are free to adopt them if they wish. A number of academy trusts have produced performance management (and other) policies aligned to these arrangements, as this page from the National Education Union attests. 

Teacher certification programme 

The Chartered College of Teaching (CCT) opened in 2017 as the chartered professional body for the teaching profession. Teachers and those from the wider education community can sign up for a variety of different memberships for an annual charge, and benefit from access to research, events, and professional learning.

A key element of the offer is the Chartered Teacher programme. This is a 14-month teacher certification programme, aligned to the Chartered College's aims of raising the status of the profession, and supporting teachers to acquire the expertise necessary to maintain excellence in teaching and secure the best outcomes for children and young people. Successful completion of the programme confers participants with Chartered Teacher Status. This recognises the knowledge, skills and behaviours of excellent teachers and represents the first step in the development of a career pathway focused on effective classroom practice, rather than leadership. 

The CCT was established with start-up funding from the Department for Education, following a consultation on improving the quality of teachers’ professional development and proposals for an independent professional body, published in December 2014. This followed publication of The Importance of Teaching, the schools White Paper (November 2010). In the longer term, the Chartered College of Teaching will be funded by membership subscriptions and its own charitable activities.

Providers 

Providers of CPD are numerous and varied. They include:

• individual schools, which may operate training internally; individual headteachers determine the timing, organisation and focus of INSET/CPD days and are not subject to any legal minimum requirement as to the length of time to be spent on CPD; schools may choose to appoint teachers to ‘leading practitioner’ posts – their primary purpose is to model and lead the improvement of teaching skills (they are paid on a separate pay range, higher than the ranges for classroom teachers)
• teaching schools, which are the Government’s primary focus for school-to-school cooperation; they act as hubs for both initial and ongoing training and are at the core of a Teaching School Alliance – a cooperative organisation that may cross phase, sector and local authority lines; Teaching School Alliances are supported by the Teaching Schools Council
• multi academy trusts (MATs)
• local authorities (LAs)
• higher and further education institutions, or groupings of these, including the Teaching & Learning Academy, a consortium of universities and university colleges
• subject organisations, such as the STEM Learning network, the Geographical Association and the Institute of Physics
• collaborative organisations such as the Whole Education Network and the PiXL Club
• private companies, charities and third sector organisations, providing a range of accredited and non-accredited CPD opportunities.

A House of Commons Education Committee report, School Partnerships and Cooperation, published in 2013, describes the roles  of some of these contributors, and a 2015 report by the DfE, Effective School Partnerships and Collaboration for School Improvement, looks at the evidence on collaboration and partnerships between schools and their effectiveness in school improvement.

Programmes

The Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund (TLIF) provides government funding for professional development programmes for teachers and school leaders. Ten providers have been awarded contracts to offer programmes aiming to increase existing teachers’ skills, confidence and knowledge in a range of areas including leadership, managing challenging pupil behaviour, geography, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and phonics. The programmes focus on teachers working in schools requiring improvement and based in disadvantaged areas.

Teacher subject specialism training (TSST) also provides training that is free of cost to participants. It was launched in September 2015 as an initiative to improve the subject knowledge of non-specialist teachers and returning teachers in shortage subjects: mathematics, physics and modern foreign languages. Lead schools and sixth-form colleges, on behalf of groups of schools and strategic partners, can apply for grant funding to provide teacher subject specialism training. Applicant schools and colleges should be graded ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ for overall effectiveness by Ofsted (the inspectorate) in their most recent inspection. They must also be able to demonstrate evidence of collaborative working with strategic partners (schools, universities, professional bodies, subject associations and others) to design, develop and evaluate high-quality professional development. The training is free of charge to participants. Applicants must be teaching in a maintained secondary school, ‎maintained or non-‎maintained special school or academy, or be a former teacher returning to the profession.

In addition, the Government’s Teaching Leaders programmes listed below aim to develop the skills of teachers working in challenging schools who have the potential to take on middle leadership roles, such as head of department. The training programmes are provided by the Ambition Institute, an organization focused on ‘supporting teachers and leaders to keep getting better’, and include:

• Teaching Leaders, a two-year leadership development programme for high-potential middle leaders
• the Middle Leadership programme, a one-year, tailored programme to develop a school’s entire middle leadership team or a cohort of middle leaders from across a cluster of schools
• the Aspiring Leadership programme, which assists schools to develop groups of teachers looking to step into their first leadership role
• the National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership (NPQML), which is open to middle leaders who have responsibility to lead a team within their school, such as key stage leaders, curriculum area leaders, pastoral services leaders, subject leaders or heads of department; NPQML aims to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence that such individuals need to lead a high-performing team in a school and to improve classroom practice.

Middle leaders may also be supported by a specialist leader of education (SLE) from another school. An SLE is an experienced middle or senior leader with a specialism (for example, mathematics, initial teacher training or behaviour), who has a role in supporting and developing middle leaders so that they have the skills to lead their own teams and improve practice in their schools. SLEs may also provide targeted mentoring support to early career teachers in areas such as behaviour management, lesson planning and subject specific knowledge through the tailored support programme.

The Government funds the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity, to provide evidence on effective interventions to raise the attainment of the most disadvanted pupils in the most challenging schools. Teachers are encouraged to use this evidence base in their teaching and as part of their ongoing professional development.

Strengthening QTS, induction and career progression 

In December 2017, the Department for Education (DfE) launched a consultation on proposals to introduce strengthened Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and career progression for teachers. In its response to the consultation, published in May 2018, the Government confirmed that it would:

• explore the possibility of introducing ‘Endorsed QTS’ at the end of the induction period for newly qualified teachers (NQTs)
• increase the length of the induction period from one to two years
• develop an Early Career Framework (ECF) of support and mentoring from autumn 2021, to create a more consistent induction experience for all new teachers
• explore the creation of new qualifications for experienced classroom teachers
• pilot a sabbatical fund for experienced teachers.

Incentives, supporting measures and funding for participation in continuing professional development (CPD) activities 

Schools decide for themselves how much of their budget to allocate to continuing professional development (CPD). This is based on their specific areas for development as set out in their school development plan (SDP), although some specific initiatives receive government funding (see the subheading ‘Providers’ above).

Each individual teacher’s development is planned for in the context of the SDP and monitored by the performance management system. CPD is consequently integrated with teacher performance management and school self-evaluation into a coherent cycle of planning.

For teachers, effective professional development is beneficial because it enhances job satisfaction. Professional development also supports both career progression and pay progression: since 2014, all pay progression for teachers has been linked to performance.

Some formal CPD activities may also attract academic accreditation at master’s level (Level 7 of The Frameworks for HE Qualifications of UK Degree-Awarding Bodies), and lead to awards including a postgraduate certificate (PG Cert – 60 credits); a postgraduate diploma (PG Dip – 120 credits); a master’s (MA – 180 credits); a doctorate (PhD – 360 credits). 

Although there is no automatic entitlement to payment for participation in CPD, there is discretion for schools to make a payment to any teacher who undertakes CPD over and above the contractual requirement of 1265 annual ‘directed hours’.

For schools, an incentive to continually improve the quality of their teachers exists in accountability measures, including performance measures based on student attainment, and Ofsted inspection. One of the four key judgements made during inspections relates to ‘leadership and management’ across the school, and includes ‘whether CPD for teachers and staff is aligned with the curriculum, and the extent to which this develops teachers’ content knowledge and teaching content knowledge over time, so that they are able to deliver better teaching for pupils’. Achieving highly in Ofsted inspections also qualifies the school to apply to take a leading role in supporting professional development across the sector, for example by becoming a teaching school.

Article last reviewed April 2021.