High-quality professional development can be a game changer for pupil outcomes as well as teacher retention and wellbeing. Sadly, after years of progress in building a world-class CPD infrastructure, we have started to backslide. This year is a crucial one to steady the ship and relaunch our efforts.
Over the past five years, the golden thread of government-funded professional development in schools (ECF and NPQs) has dominated thinking, alongside funding for the infrastructure to ensure those qualifications could be delivered.
The golden thread offered the promise of equal access across every school to a stable and consistent evidence base for all teachers and school leaders to draw upon as they progress in their careers.
Any new government has to prioritise. Inevitably, things that are not at the top of the priorities list continue as before – in essence carrying on the policy of the previous government.
When it comes to the golden thread and wider professional development, the Labour government has inherited – and has continued to oversee – a decline in availability and spend that is undermining the policy’s original vision.
This started with the previous government’s decisions, at the end of its time in power, to slash NPQ funding in 2024-25 and to defund the Teaching School Hub Council. It has continued with the decision announced just before Christmas to continue supporting a much reduced NPQ offer.
Given the wider funding pressures on schools, it is no surprise the spend on developing teachers and leaders has been falling; 2016 to 2023 saw a real-terms drop of 50 per cent in primary schools and 30 per cent in secondary schools.
We cannot accept policy drift here
The previously higher levels of investment in NPQs offered some respite to schools struggling to support the professional development of their staff. But as NPQ funding falls, will schools be able to step back in and fill the gap?
Current trends suggest not, which means we cannot accept policy drift here. Something needs to be done to ensure that teachers and school leaders can access the professional development they deserve.
The good news is that this is a Labour government with an expansive and positive vision. The manifesto commitment to deliver an entitlement to CPD for all teachers and school leaders offers the opportunity to take the best of the golden thread approach and to combine it with a more sophisticated and more responsive system rooted in engagement with and trust in the profession.
Even better news is that much of the work needed to establish this new system can be done at little cost in the short term. This is not a policy that should be rushed and it is important to test ideas and build an infrastructure for delivering the entitlement with the profession so that it becomes a core part of the system, not subject to the ebbs and flows of short-term government financial pressures.
To start 2025 on the right foot, here are three things that government could support now to begin to make a difference:
First, set out a timetable and a collaborative process for the introduction of the CPD Entitlement. Different elements should be piloted, and we should plan to have an entitlement in place by the end of this parliament.
This could start with commissioning an independent review the professional development standards, for example by the Chartered College of Teaching.
Second, expand the review of NPQs to consider the state of the market as well as the content of the qualifications. While it is important to ensure that the content of NPQs is fit for purpose, it is also important to ensure a viable market exists so that schools have a choice of high-quality providers.
This should include a review of the National Institute of Teaching’s place in the market: is it a government agency or a commercial provider?
Third, integrate thinking about the CPD entitlement and wider professional development into the 6,500 teachers target. Recruitment can of course be improved, and flexibility is a promising avenue to improve retention – but so is teaching’s professional development offer.
Decisive action is needed to reverse the decline. Weaving the single golden thread into a rich fabric of effective professional development must be a priority.
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