Creating space to improve pedagogical practice

In July 2021, alongside my head of department Matt Phillips, I began implementing a year-long departmental CPD programme in the Humanities department. At Pendleton Sixth Form we are fortunate to have a two hour block every Monday afternoon dedicated to meetings and CPD. In Humanities, we decided we would like to do something more structured and iterative with this time, and as I have a keen interest in educational research and was at the time undertaking a Masters in Education, Matt asked for my help in designing an appropriate programme.

The structure and design of the CPD programme

We asked all Humanities teachers to read ‘Principles of Direct Instruction’, an influential journal article by Prof Barak Rosenshine from 2012, and choose one or two of these principles to work on throughout the academic year 2021/2022. Teachers were then put in small groups to facilitate their working collaboratively on planning with colleagues who chose similar areas to work on. Time was allocated to the project in two of our Monday CPD slots per half term: one session for this small group collaborative working, and one session for a follow-up bringing the whole department together to share examples of strategies, resources or plans put into practice so far, as well as some time for further small group planning. This provided for CPD to be tailored to individual needs and for time to be made available for teachers to take the steps over time needed to improve their practice – principles of effective pedagogical PD anchored in research (Korthagen, 2017, Wiliam, 2010.) We also made our chosen CPD focus one of our Professional Development Review (PDR) targets for each teacher.

Rosenshine’s ‘Principles of Direct Instruction’ was chosen as the basis for the CPD project because it is sufficiently broad to enable the individual teachers in the department, who teach subjects ranging from Classical Civilisation to Sport, to use their own expertise to identify areas of their practice which they feel could be improved and work on ways in which they may improve. The focus of direct instruction is also well suited to A levels assessed mainly through external examinations.

The rationale behind the CPD programme

We wanted to design something which would allow teachers to work on aspects of their practice over a sustained period of time and provide time and support for collaboration and sharing good practice. For CPD to succeed in adjusting teacher behaviour, it needs to be tailored to meet the needs of the individual and the context in which they work. Changing teacher behaviour is difficult, as it involves changing longstanding habits, and teachers will therefore need CPD that is flexible to their individual needs and supports them to make small steps towards change. Furthermore, leaders play an important role in supporting teachers by giving time to enable them to work together and prioritising their development by removing other tasks to give sufficient time: ‘if everything is a priority, nothing is’ (Wiliam, 2010).

The outcomes of the CPD programme in the Humanities Department 

Teachers in the department felt that they had made positive changes to aspects of their practice and were more focused on improving their skills; for example, by being stricter about conducting knowledge tests and improving their use of scaffolds and models for exam questions. Teachers reported that the CPD programme caused them to think more deeply about their practice and to consciously try to make improvements and changes. In some cases, they also reported that the CPD had led them to engage more with the research behind some of their teaching techniques.

Teachers also perceived that their students’ work was improving as a result of the focus or refocus on aspects of their pedagogical practice. They reported that their students were doing better in knowledge retrieval and were applying this improved knowledge to their written work. Furthermore, they reported that this written work had also improved due to their increased focus on scaffolding and modelling exam questions. These perceptions were supported by 2022 examination outcomes, with improvements in ALPs in most Humanities subjects when compared to 2019, the last time external exams were sat. 

In terms of collaboration, teachers found significant benefits to having regular, timetabled time to collaborate on planning and sharing good practice. Colleagues spoke particularly positively about sharing practice with the rest of the department and felt they had gained ideas from this.

Teachers were also clear that the collaboration had made them accountable for keeping up with working on their practice where they may otherwise have been distracted by other priorities. Utilising our collegiality was of great benefit here – none of us wanted to let down colleagues.

Next steps

Given the positive outcomes of the CPD programme in the Humanities Department, I am now rolling this structure out to the rest of Pendleton Sixth Form College as part of my role as Advanced Practitioner, and we are all focusing on the Rosenshine paper this year. Hopefully other departments will benefit from having a structure which encourages sustained work on improving practice and collaboration as much as the Humanities team have.

Kath Horwill is a history teacher and advanced practitioner at Pendleton Sixth Form College, part of Salford City College.

References:

Korthagen, F. 2017. ‘Inconvenient truths about teacher learning: towards professional development 3.0’.  Teachers and Teaching 23(4) pp 387-405.

Rosenshine, B. 2012. ‘Principles of instruction: research-based strategies that all teachers should know.’ The American Educator 36 (1) pp 12-20.

Wiliam, D. 2010. ‘Teacher quality: why it matters and how to get more of it’. Spectator Schools Revolution Conference, 2 March, London.