Research School Network: How can professional development for high quality teaching underpin an effective Pupil Premium Strategy? Jo Ashcroft reflects on developing Pupil Premium strategies in CLIC Trust schools

Jo Ashcroft reflects upon how professional development has underpinned the development of Pupil Premium strategies at the Changing Lives In Collaboration (CLIC) Trust schools. Jo is the CEO and Executive Headteacher of the CLIC Trust (a Trust of five Primary Schools in Greater Manchester) and is an ELE for the Aspirer Research School.

A Tiered Approach

For many years, the Pupil Premium Strategies at all schools in the Trust have adopted the recommended tiered approach (high quality teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies), really prioritising high quality teaching. This is in-line with the EEF’s Guide to the Pupil Premium, 2022, which states:

​‘Ensuring an effective teacher is in front of every class, and that every teacher is supported to keep improving, is the key ingredient of a successful school and should rightly be a top priority for pupil premium spending.’

It has been important to us that the Pupil Premium Strategies and School Development Plans align to enable us to pursue improvement in a small number of key priority areas with diligence. Key priority one on the Trust’s strategy is ensuring that there is high quality teaching in every class; every school also has a key priority relating to high quality teaching in their school development plan (which directly links to their Pupil Premium Strategy). The EEF’s Pupil Premium Evidence Brief provided focus to discussions to inform our strategic planning around high quality teaching:

Professional Development on Evidence-Based Approaches

Central to the strategy for high quality teaching is effective and impactful staff professional development. To facilitate this, we established a Teaching Steering Group – a group of 16 staff from the CLIC schools (teachers, Teaching Assistants, senior and middle leaders) with a passion for teaching and evidence-informed practice. This group spent time unpicking the evidence about the impact of different teaching strategies and approaches and considering which were the best bets, likely to have the greatest impact on all pupils (and especially disadvantaged learners). They then used this to author a Trust-wide High-Quality Teaching Framework. The features of high quality teaching identified within the Framework underpin staff professional development, which is designed with a balance of mechanisms: to build knowledge; develop techniques; motivate; and embed new practices.
The Framework offers schools an evidence-informed menu of approaches for improving teaching. School leaders then prioritise from the Framework, aligning with their context, to inform their own school’s professional development offer.

A case study: Chorlton Park Primary school

Chorlton Park have had a professional development programme over almost three-years that has focused upon:
- teaching strategies that support long-term memory
- an optimum teaching sequence to gradually release responsibility for learning from teacher to pupil and improve pupil independence (recommendation 2 from the Metacognition Guidance Report)
optimising guided practice; and
teaching pupils to be metacognitive, including developing pupils’ metacognitive talk (recommendation 5 from the Metacognition Guidance Report)

The Framework supports staff knowledge and understanding of the active ingredients for high quality teaching and the design and delivery of the professional development offer supports staff to make alterations to their practice in-line with the active ingredients. This professional development programme has been deeply rooted in the evidence base and has been carefully designed to reflect the features identified in the High-Quality Teaching Framework, thereby providing exemplification to staff.

The professional development mechanisms in action at Chorlton Park:

Building Knowledge
The professional development programme has really considered the wealth of existing knowledge that staff already have and has activated this prior knowledge to support staff in building schema. It has also been effectively spaced over a long period of time and has included regular retrieval opportunities to enable staff to strengthen their knowledge and understanding.

Motivating
The professional development offer started with ​‘why’ – the current position and needs of the school and its pupils as well as the strength of the evidence base. The training model was also planned with regular opportunities to share and celebrate successes.

Developing techniques
As well as training (INSET days and staff meetings) there has also been considerable wider follow-on support: peer support models, instructional coaching, sharing of good practice and exemplification, and regular opportunities for reflection and evaluation. 

Embedding Practice

From the outset, it was clearly articulated that this will be a key priority over a number of years. This sustained focus has resulted in the strategies developed through the professional development becoming successfully embedded and consistent in practice.

Final reflections
I have heard many teachers and leaders in recent years express concerns that high quality teaching approaches raise standards for all pupils and therefore do little to reduce the gap for our most disadvantaged learners. What we have found is that, whilst the quality of teaching does improve progress and therefore outcomes for all pupils, the greatest impact is seen for our disadvantaged learners. In 2022, the pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium Grant in Year 6 at Chorlton Park out-performed the national averages in every area (Reading, Writing, Maths and combined).

My reflection is that the success of professional development to improve high quality teaching as a strategy to support disadvantaged learners hinges on two things – the what (what practices and strategies we are seeking to implement, which must be selected based on evidence) and the how (ensuring that the professional development model is also designed based on the best possible evidence about how adults learn).