NPQLTD Designing effective professional development
Practice Activities
Select three of the following nine activities to submit to your leadership mentor.
Choose an activity based on your areas of interest and the results of the initial needs analysis undertaken at the start of the course.
Please note: There may be some resources for this activity that are not linked directly on this page because they are included in the study pack provided for your current module. Please refer to your study pack for these materials, as they form an essential part of your learning for this course.
Activity 1: Involve colleagues in the selection of professional development priorities
Read part 1 of the Standard for teachers' professional development, 'Professional development should have a clear focus on improving and evaluating pupil outcomes' and Rob Sears' practice piece in the selfstudy pack.
Rob worked with both senior leaders and staff to establish professional development priorities at his school, using teachers' self-evaluations, subject knowledge audits, book looks, learning walks, and pupil conferences while ensuring priorities were informed by the school development plan.
Meet with senior leaders in your school to discuss the current approach to selecting professional development priorities, for example; diagnosis of need through teaching evaluations, teacher selfevaluation, pupil assessment data, statutory requirements.
How does this approach ensure alignment with wider school improvement priorities?
How could the process be refined to ensure alignment is secured more effectively?
How does the approach ensure staff and senior leaders are able to contribute to the selection of priorities?
How could the process be refined to include staff input more effectively?
Draft a plan to refine the current process for involving colleagues (particularly school leaders) in the selection of professional development priorities and ensuring alignment with wider school improvement priorities. Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Practice piece: Rob Sear (Maths specialist teacher)
Department for Education (2015) Standard for teachers’ professional development.
Activity 2: Planning subject and phase-specific activities
Identify one or more experienced colleagues teaching a particular subject within a particular phase/domain.
Meet with them to discuss the essential knowledge, skills and concepts for that subject, phase/domain.
How have they identified these essential areas of knowledge or skills? How are these prioritised? Use their expertise to identify subject, phase and domain specific curriculum materials.
Why were these materials selected?
Work with your colleague or colleagues to identify a specific area of knowledge or skill to develop and plan a PD activity or programme ensuring it is aligned to subject, phase and domain specific curriculum materials.
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your mentor.
Activity 3: Breaking down complex content
Read page 20 of EEF's (2021) Effective professional development report, Develop teaching techniques'.
Meet with an experienced colleague to identify a specific teaching technique for development informed by the school improvement plan, pupil data or evidence from teaching evaluations. The EEF gives the example of instructing teachers how to use manipulatives and representations, how to teach strategies for solving problems or how to use assessment to build on understanding.
Identify the constituent components of your chosen teaching technique, for example the individual skills or knowledge required for teachers to master the technique.
Plan an activity or sequence of PD that includes the five mechanisms proven to support the development of teaching techniques.
instructing teachers on how to perform a technique
arranging practical social support
modelling the technique
providing feedback
rehearsing the technique
How will you scaffold tasks around the constituent components of your chosen teaching technique?
How will you ensure your sequence or activity develops a thorough understanding of the underlying principles of the teaching technique?
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective professional development guidance report.
Activity 4: Drawing on external expertise
Assistant Headteacher, Zara Peskett, drew on external expertise for her oracy project in a large comprehensive secondary school, connecting with an expert team in another school.
Meet with subject leaders in your school.
What links do subject specialists and subject leaders in your school have with external subject experts?
How is collaboration with external subject experts managed and monitored in your school?
How could you support the exploitation of these links to improve subject knowledge in your school?
What do you need from senior leadership to support the use of external expertise in your school?
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Practice piece: Zara Peskett, assistant headteacher, Shenley Brook End
Activity 5: Using existing frameworks and resources
Katie Jennings made use of existing frameworks and resources to support professional development at Mission Grove Primary School, drawing on free services of external providers including the Open
University’s FutureLearn digital education platform as well as purchasing commercial training provided by The Key.
Meet with other senior leaders at your school to discuss the use of existing frameworks and resources for professional development currently used at your school, e.g. ITT Core Content Framework, National Professional Qualifications, Early Career Framework, commercial training, MOOCs like Coursera or Futurelearn).
Identify an example of the effective use of existing resources and frameworks at your school.
Why was this successful and how could you tell (e.g. impact on pupils and staff, improved pupil outcomes, changes in teacher practice)?
What action would you need to take to ensure the use of other frameworks and resources were as effective (e.g. refining your strategy for; diagnosing development needs, identifying and selecting resources and frameworks, evaluating quality, highlighting relevance to teaching practice, providing time and support from leaders.)?
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Practice piece: Katie Jennings, Head Teacher, Mission Grove Primary School
Activity 6: Productive use of development time
“Developers need to provide sufficient clear guidance about the purpose, goals and principles of the intervention, while maintaining the flexibility needed to ensure teachers can fit the intervention into their working patterns.” Sims et al. (2021)
Read page 35 of the EEF (2021) Effective professional development report, 'Time constraints and adapting accordingly'.
Meet with colleagues to discuss the use of professional development time at your school.
Identify a recent professional development programme or activity in your school.
How did the design of the PD activity fit in with the school routine?
How were the benefits and relevance of the PD activity or programme communicated to teachers?
What action was taken to balance the desire to promote lasting and meaningful learning with the imperative to minimise the pressure placed on teacher time?
How could the design be adapted to make more productive use of development time?
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective professional development guidance report.
Activity 7: Creating impact for your school context
"Adaptation can ensure that professional development better suits the context it is delivered in … an adaptation is more likely to have positive effects where it makes small tweaks to tailor the programme to teachers’ and students’ needs or extends the programme. Where an adaptation omits crucial elements of the programme, and particularly where it fails to incorporate the mechanisms, it is less likely to succeed."
Read section 3 of EEF's (2021) Effective professional development report which provides guidance on designing activities for your school context.
The guidance recommends that given the varied dynamics and challenges faced across schools and settings, those who develop PD should expect variation in delivery and should, therefore, identify and clearly signpost the type of adaptations that can be permitted and encouraged.
Meet with a colleague to discuss a development programme used in your school.
What components of the programme are essential to creating impact? Why?
What aspects of the programme could be adapted to suit different contexts and needs?
Draft guidance for trainers indicating how and where adaptations could be made? (e.g. alternative resources, changes to delivery, frequency or length).
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective Professional Development guidance report.
Activity 8: Creating balanced programmes
Read section 2 of the EEF (2021) Effective professional development report, 'Ensure that professional development effectively builds knowledge, motivates, develops techniques, and embeds practice'. This explains how to balance the design of PD programmes by including 14 key mechanisms required to improve pupil attainment.
Meet with a colleague to critically review the design of a professional development activity offered in your school.
What is its purpose?
o build knowledge
o motivate teachers
o develop teaching techniques
o embed practice
How effectively does the design incorporate relevant mechanisms?
What is the impact of including and implementing the mechanisms identified?
How could the design be refined to create better balance?
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.
Resources
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective Professional Development guidance report.
Activity 9: Assess teacher quality
In Phil Paul's practice piece he explained that for teachers to have a complete understanding of their pupils' progress, there needs to be a triangulation between data, samples of work and interactions in class dialogue. He emphasised the benefits of deep discussion, collaborative planning, triad discussions and peer reflections to support the planning of professional development activities and effective impact measurement?
Plan and conduct a triad discussion in your school, identifying two of your colleagues to work with you to gather and evaluate evidence from:
classroom observations of class dialogue and pupil/teacher interactions
samples of work
pupil assessment data
Use the evidence to evaluate the quality of teaching for a specific sequence of learning.
In your triad, review the evidence, discussing what it reveals about the quality of teaching for that sequence of learning.
Reflect on your findings and what you have learned from working in a triad.
Submission
Write a 250 words (maximum) summary of your actions and learning from this task and submit to your leadership mentor.