Strand 3 of our study includes qualitative work using school case studies. We are interviewing headteachers, professional development leads and teachers to delve deeper into what makes professional development effective in their school from their different perspectives. At this stage of analysis, we are finding some interesting patterns emerging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vision and strategic priorities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The case studies suggest that a \u2018vision-led\u2019 strategy, as opposed to a \u2018reactive\u2019 or ad-hoc response to professional learning, is important. Schools emphasise that they need to see the \u2018relevance\u2019 of professional development interventions and activities to their context, departments, teachers\u2019 and pupils\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While all our cases show that schools do support isolated \u2018one-off\u2019 professional development on occasion, if requested and justified as part of teachers\u2019 individual performance management targets, all schools also identify whole-school professional development to meet their strategic priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These priorities can be externally driven \u2013 for example, through engagement with research evidence, or anticipating\/following an Ofsted inspection. They can also be internally driven \u2013 for example, through classroom observations of teacher quality, pupil progress data, and feedback from staff and pupil voice. In some schools, governors have input into professional development direction. In others, a Multi-Academy Trust offers significant professional development provision and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The importance of leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In schools, leadership emerges as a crucial factor in shaping the way priorities are transformed into professional development action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the approaches of head teachers, Multi-Academy Trust leaders and school-level professional development leads vary considerably. We are exploring different kinds of professional leadership orientation with regard to professional development. Aligned with the literature, we\u2019re finding in particular that an \u2018enabling leadership\u2019 approach tends to foster a supportive and collaborative environment that values and encourages professional development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In most of our case studies, distributed leadership also seems to be an important aspect of effective professional development \u2014 where staff are empowered to engage actively with the \u2018big picture\u2019 of whole-school professional development programmes, as well as their own professional development targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It appears to be important to have one or two senior leaders taking overall strategic and operational responsibility for professional development in school. Working alongside the head and other SLT, these professional development leads are instrumental in mobilising schools\u2019 use of research evidence, by: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Distributed leadership is emerging as another aspect of effective professional development structures. In other words, middle leaders and other staff are encouraged to contribute to professional development decisions and to take on particular responsibilities in professional development roll-out to ensure sustained change in classroom practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Communities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another theme emerging from our findings is that coaching groups, teaching and learning communities and professional learning communities are important ways to trial, deliver and embed new practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These communities, together with an enabling leadership approach, help to develop a culture of trust between staff. This in turn enables effective collaboration, peer support, and constructive risk-taking when trying new things, without fear of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting \u2018buy in\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An interesting recurring theme coming out of our data is staff \u2018buy-in\u2019. All the participants we interviewed mentioned how critical it is to get staff on board with the overall professional development vision and approach, as well as the identified professional development priorities. If staff can\u2019t see the relevance of the priorities or interventions and\/or they feel isolated from the strategic decision-making processes, it\u2019s much harder for professional development leads to inspire commitment and motivation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n School leaders recognise the importance of this and have put in play a variety of strategies to tackle the issue. Leaders will often emphasise the research evidence \u2013 as well as internal data \u2013 in order to justify a new initiative and gain traction with staff. In the words of one head, \u2018We try not to use \u201cI think\u201d. It\u2019s \u201cthe evidence shows\u2026\u201d.\u2019 Other strategies are grounded in the empowering staff and letting them know they are valued and supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are continuing our analysis and will follow up with further insights as we progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Strand 3 of our study includes qualitative work using school case studies. We are interviewing headteachers, professional development leads and teachers to delve deeper into what makes professional development effective in their school from their different perspectives. At this stage of analysis, we are finding some interesting patterns emerging. Vision and strategic priorities The case studies … Continue reading Emerging findings from our school case studies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}