Best Practice

Implementing deliberate practice as part of CPD: A case study

CPD Pedagogy Teaching staff Early Career Teachers Lesson planning
Effective teacher development involves practising the right things, at the right time and in the right way then it is a key CPD tool. In part two of his look at deliberate practice, Robbie Burns explains how his school has implemented this approach


In the first part of this two-part article, I attempted to provide a rationale for deliberate practice being an important part of teacher development. In part two, I offer a case study of how we have developed deliberate practice, learning from some mistakes along the way. Just before I dive in, I will quickly outline what deliberate practice is.

Deliberate practice is specific training activities, designed by a leader to specifically improve aspects of performance through repetition, feedback and further refinement (Ericsson & Lehman, 1996).

The difference between simply doing something over and over again and even what we might call “purposeful practice”, is that the goal is not set by individuals striving for excellence but is guided directly by the accomplishments of those who have achieved greatness in their field, the paths they took, and the methods they used.

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