Research School Network: Designing Effective Professional Development – how hard can it be? Considering supporting documents

At the end of October, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) published guidance report number seventeen – ​‘Effective Professional Development’ which you can download here. There are a number of blogs already out there that outline the key messages of this report so I do not want to reiterate what is already out there. If you are interested in reading blogs about this two written by content specialists at the EEF – ​‘A balanced approach to successful professional development’ by Kirstin Mulholland and ​‘Effective Professional Development and Motivating Teachers’ by Julie Kettlewell.

Instead, I want to look at one of the supporting documents that the EEF have created to be used alongside this report that encourages you to consider whether or not the professional development that you are planning is balanced or not (you can download it here).

However, instead of using this document to plan some PD, I am going to use it to reflect on some current PD I am delivering based on sharing the Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning guidance report to my colleagues. The aim of the training is to create a new evidence-informed feedback policy and we are dedicating one staff meeting to each recommendation in the report and allowing time in between for colleagues to choose a new technique or strategy to ​‘deliberately practice’. (For more information on this, read my blog here).

The Vice Principal and I had developed this outline before the Effective Professional Development guidance report was published and we generally based the structure on what had worked in the past – small steps with a clear end goal. However, I think that now we are halfway through our current planned sessions, it is the perfect time to use the document above as a guide for honest reflection.

When the Vice Principal and I planned out our 6 meeting structure we never intended for the process to be complete but we were less clear on what the future sessions needed to focus on. I think this document has enabled me to critically reflect on what we have done so far and what is still to do. It has allowed me to pinpoint some of the key mechanisms that were not in place and to start thinking about which of the remaining ones will be the most effective moving forwards. It is important to remember that when using the mechanisms from the guidance report that you do not have to use all 14, you use the ones that will be the most effective and try to ensure that you have a balanced approach. Whilst this document is entitled ​‘Planning Professional Development’ I would definitely recommend using it to help you plan, monitor and evaluate how balanced and effective your professional development is.


Sarah Izon

Director of the Aspirer Research School