CPD

Back to School: Staff wellbeing and support

In this 12-page guide, we consider how lockdown has affected the wellbeing and mental health of school staff and offer practical advice and ideas for promoting wellbeing and supporting colleagues, both now and this autumn

Four coaching conversations for school leaders

Coaching can have a positive influence on staff wellbeing, morale and performance in schools. Denise Barrows outlines four particularly powerful coaching conversations that leaders can use to achieve this sort of transformative impact

Seven solutions to your teacher retention challenges

More than one in nine primary teachers are leaving the profession each year. Drawing on a range of research, Matt Bromley looks at seven key factors that schools should focus on if they want to boost retention rates

Ideas for teacher CPD during lockdown

One consequence of the Covid-19 closures for many teachers has been a reduction or at least a side-lining of their CPD. Fiona Aubrey-Smith urges schools and teachers not to neglect their CPD and instead to take their professional learning online...

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Cultivating the lead practitioner role

Headteacher and MAT CEO Stephen Dean created a maths improvement strategy as part of his CPD studies – an approach that created immediate, notable results. Yvonne Gandy learns more

CPD: Five things schools should…

Are you planning next year’s CPD programme for your schools? Maria Cunningham suggests five things the evidence says you should leave out

Ten ideas for using research in your school

How do we engage teachers with research? And how can we turn this engagement into impact? Alex Beauchamp offers 10 principles for developing research-informed professional learning

CPD: Books on the balcony...

School leaders can find inspiration and solutions if they build reading for professional development into their schedules, says Yvonne Gandy

Getting subject-specific CPD right

The role of subject-specific CPD and curriculum development in effective teaching is vital. Maria Cunningham looks at the research and some best practice approaches

Teaching climate change

EduCCate Global and a group of Teaching Schools in Derbyshire are supporting teachers to train in climate change education in order to equip children to handle an uncertain future on a warming planet. Headteacher Fiona Cowan explains more about the project and her school’s climate change curriculum

Observing vulnerable students during lessons

For teachers with challenging or vulnerable students in their lessons, observations can become all the more stressful. Daniel Sobel looks at how we must observe the pupils in question and not the teachers...

Supporting teacher practice and wellbeing

Drury Primary School in North Wales has developed a staff programme called the SWIG Club, which promotes wellbeing and encourages teachers to share good practice. Liz Jones explains

Case study: An effective plan for CPD

How does your school plan and implement effective professional development? Drawing on his work at Springfield Junior School, Daniel Jones shares the main principles and logistics behind their approaches to using CPD to develop and sustain high-quality teaching

The role of governors in supporting CPD

How much does your governing board know about effective staff development – and to what extent do governors support and challenge your school’s work in this crucial area? Maria Cunningham advises

CPD in the EAL classroom

As schools become linguistically and culturally diverse, it makes sense to ensure that teaching staff are adequately prepared. Silvana Richardson looks at CPD to enable teaching staff to work effectively in diverse multilingual classrooms

The challenges facing primary science education

Primary science education faces some key challenges since it was overhauled in the national curriculum reforms, including questions over how well ‘working like a scientist’ is promoted and how confident teachers are to deliver lessons. Deborah Roberts explains

Making school-to-school CPD collaborations work

The benefits of schools working together to deliver effective CPD can be far-reaching. Maria Cunningham looks at some practical steps schools might take to overcome the barriers to school-to-school CPD collaboration

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Headteacher Update is the only magazine delivered directly to every primary school headteacher in the UK. It is published six times a year, at the beginning of each term and half-term, to keep headteachers up-to-date with everything going on in primary education.

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