Continued Professional and Personal Development (CPPD)

At CPS, we believe every member of our community deserves the opportunity to grow, thrive and genuinely feel valued: this is what caring to achieve means. But this doesn’t just apply to our students. Whether you are a teacher, a member of our support staff or a governor we are committed to developing our staff to empower them to make a meaningful impact on our school community in whatever role they have.

Compulsory Continued Professional Development (Teaching):

At the heart of our ethos for professional development (PD) is the knowledge that as professionals we need to be given the time to concentrate on, and rehearse, improvements to our practice before carrying them out in the classroom. Much like other skills-based professions: surgeons, dentists, vets, we need to have the space to rehearse important techniques outside of the classroom before implementing them inside the classroom. 

We offer a rich range of compulsory development elements which are designed to expand our knowledge on the fundamental principles of high-quality inclusive teaching whilst also progressively refining our skills. Our compulsory training element has three strands:

INSET time

We deliver a robust and focussed whole-school programme of training and development based on the principles of active rehearsal. Our training programme is designed around the EEF mechanisms for professional development. In essence we: build knowledge; motivate staff; develop our teaching techniques and then embed these so they become a habitual part of our practice, one step at a time.

Spotlight Sessions

A programme of 10 minute, weekly sessions which focus on one small area of development and use active rehearsal and co-planning to build small improvements into teaching habit.

Responsive Coaching

Every member of the teaching team will be coached by a trained coach, focussing on specific classroom practice targeted at the individual level. In turn, this feeds into our planning for more whole-school development, driving a cycle of intentioned and impactful PD. There are no formal observations here at CPS therefore making every drop in by a coach or colleague purely focussed on fostering a culture of supported development.

Continued Personal Development (Teaching):

Whilst the compulsory elements act as a foundation to drive and support teacher development we recognise that individual teachers need to be allowed the space to develop their own careers and teaching skills, pertinent to their expertise, subject area and classroom. As such we offer a wide range of opportunities for continued personal development no matter what the stage of your career. Teachers can:

  1. Join the coaching team – teachers are trained and supported to deliver quality Instructional Coaching.
  2. Join or lead one of our book groups where educational research is discussed, dissected and implemented into lessons.
  3. Take part in an action research project of their choosing.
  4. Join our established ‘Aspiring Middle Leaders Programme’ where we aim to give teachers a practical insight into middle leadership.
  5. Work shadow a colleague in a role they are thinking about.

This is not an exhaustive list; we are always open to listening to ways people want to develop. We actively encourage our teachers to visit other schools to share good practice and learn from others. We are proud that many of our teachers are not only actively involved in their subject area panel but many chair these too.

We also recognise the benefit of externally provided development and training: many of our teachers have made excellent use of outside provision using NPQs in Leading Teaching and Senior Leadership to develop themselves and others, as well as attending a variety of private and local authority led training. We are committed to our staff being part of a culture of sharing expertise across the profession.

In short, we believe that training and development isn’t something done to you; it is something done in partnership with you. Caring to achieve isn’t just an ethos we apply to our students – it is an ethos which is central to how we develop each and every member of staff.