Findings: reports and presentations

Final reports

We have produced four final project reports.

The final summary report contains an overview of the whole study, summaries from each strand of their methods and findings, a synthesis of the findings looking across the three strands and a consideration of their implications for policy and practice.

Each strand of the study also has its own individual report, containing detailed methods, findings and implications for policy and practice.

The reports are available from Sheffield Hallam University’s Research Depository:

Whole project summary: understanding mechanisms for change in policy and school environments which lead to embedded teacher professional development

Strand 1: available soon

Strand 2: available soon

Strand 3: Embedding change: leadership of professional development in schools

Webinars

In December 2023, we held a series of webinars in which we shared drafts of our findings, considered what these findings tell us about the implementation of professional development, and invited reflections and discussion on their implications for practice and policy.

Here, we share the presentations from those webinars. The findings and implications included in these presentations are still in draft form and likely to change by the time we publish our final reports.

The Full Project Webinar presentation contains:

  • An overview of the whole study
  • Summaries from each strand of the study of their methods, findings and implications
  • Reflections, findings and next steps looking across the three strands

Below, we share three presentations, each focussed on each of the three project strands. Each contains in-depth details of each strand’s aims, methods, findings and their implications.

Strand 1. Leadership for professional development: a systematic evidence review of national and international research

Strand 2. Policy implementation in mathematics and science professional development: analysis of policy implementation in mathematics and science professional development

Strand 3. Embedding change in teacher professional development: primary mixed methods data collection

CPD Leads Survey

Our survey formed part of Strand 3 of our study. Here we summarise our findings from the survey. The document below provides detailed analysis. The survey was designed to be completed by staff in schools in England who hold a professional development leadership role. Our intention was to learn more about the structures and processes within the school environment which support professional development.

The findings demonstrate the importance of school leaders, particularly those with a formalised CPD leadership role, in planning, coordinating and delivering professional development in schools, and in building policies and practices within schools which support teachers’ engagement in professional development activities. They suggest that, even when schools have varying contexts and staff professional development needs, it is possible to build cultures of professional development through actions which support staff participation and changing practice. Numbers of participants were small and so, while we do not suggest that these findings are representative of the CPD system in English schools, they provide valuable insights into the leadership of professional development in the current system.

Reports

Project reports will be available here early in 2024.