CPD

Timperley et al. (2007) identified five features of CPD that produce consistent gains in learner outcomes. First, it must be sustained over time: at least 35 hours of contact time, spread across a term or year, rather than a single full-day event. Second, it must involve active learning: teachers practising, trialling, and discussing rather than passively listening. Third, it must focus on subject-specific pedagogy: general teaching tips are less effective than strategies directly applicable to what teachers are actually teaching. Fourth, it must be collaborative: shared inquiry with colleagues is more powerful than individual study. Fifth, it must use evidence to examine the impact on learners: teachers need to see whether what they are doing is working. One-off INSET days that tick none of these boxes account for a significant proportion of CPD spending in schools despite producing very little return.

The Early Career Framework (ECF) is a statutory entitlement introduced in England in September 2021 for all teachers in their first two years of teaching. It replaces the previous one-year induction and provides a structured programme of professional development drawing on evidence from cognitive science, behaviour management research, and curriculum theory. The ECF is organised around five standards: behaviour and attitudes, teaching, adapting teaching, assessment, and professional behaviours. Early career teachers receive a reduced timetable, weekly mentor meetings with a trained mentor, and half-termly training events. NFER (2022) early evaluation found that ECT confidence and retention improved compared with previous induction arrangements, though longer-term impact data is still emerging.

Mentoring and coaching are often used interchangeably but they describe distinct relationships. A mentor is typically more experienced in the same field and draws on that experience to offer guidance, advice, and modelling. The relationship is often hierarchical: the mentor knows things the mentee does not yet know. Coaching, in contrast, is typically non-directive: a coach does not need to be an expert in the coachee's subject. A coach uses structured questions to help a practitioner identify what they already know, articulate what they want to change, and generate their own solutions. In education, instructional coaching blends both approaches: the coach does observe lessons and offer specific, evidence-informed feedback on teaching, but the dialogue remains fundamentally about the teacher's own thinking rather than the coach's prescriptions. Kraft et al. (2018) found instructional coaching produced effect sizes of 0.49 on teaching quality, making it one of the strongest CPD investments available.

Lesson study is a Japanese model of professional development in which small teams of teachers collaboratively plan, observe, and review a "research lesson" focused on how specific case learners learn. Unlike conventional lesson observation, the focus is not on evaluating the teacher: it is on understanding how learners respond to a planned learning sequence. The team agrees on a research question (for example, "how do our case learners respond when we use ratio tables before the algorithm?"), one teacher teaches while the others observe specific learners, then the team discusses what they saw and what it implies for the next lesson. Lewis et al. (2006) argued that lesson study builds the kind of knowledge that is rarely developed through individual study: shared understanding of how learners think about specific content in a specific subject.

Gibbs (1988) proposed a six-stage cycle for reflecting on professional experience. The stages are: description (what happened?), feelings (what were you thinking and feeling?), evaluation (what was good or bad about the experience?), analysis (what sense can you make of the situation?), conclusion (what else could you have done?), and action plan (if it arose again, what would you do?). The cycle is most useful when used systematically after a lesson that did not go as expected, rather than as a general journaling tool. The key is the analysis stage: this is where you connect what happened to what you know about learning, pedagogy, and your learners. Descriptive reflection without analytical depth is of limited value. Teachers who use the cycle regularly over a term report it helps them notice patterns in their practice they would otherwise miss.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are groups of teachers who meet regularly to share practice, examine evidence about learner learning, and collaboratively develop their teaching. DuFour and Eaker (1998) identified the defining features of an effective PLC: a shared mission focused on learning, a collaborative culture, collective inquiry into best practice, an action orientation (trying things, not just discussing them), a commitment to continuous improvement, and attention to results. Not all staff meetings are PLCs. The distinction is in the focus: a meeting that discusses behaviour policies is not a PLC; a meeting where teachers examine work samples to ask "are our learners learning what we intended?" is. Stoll et al. (2006) found that PLCs in schools are associated with improved learner achievement, particularly when they are sustained over time and focused on subject-specific pedagogical questions.

Evidence-informed teaching does not mean reading every research paper published: it means being systematic about connecting what you do to what is known to work. Three habits build this over time. First, read selectively: the Education Endowment Foundation toolkit, ResearchEd publications, and Willingham's "Why Don't Students Like School?" give a reliable base without requiring deep expertise in research methods. Second, trial deliberately: choose one strategy from the research, implement it consistently for at least a half-term, and use learner work and assessments to evaluate its impact rather than relying on impression. Third, discuss regularly: talking with colleagues about what you tried and what the evidence from your classroom showed is more generative than any amount of individual reading. Coe et al. (2014) argued that teacher expertise develops most rapidly when practitioners are exposed to challenging tasks, receive feedback, and have opportunities to reflect. The evidence-informed habit creates exactly these conditions.