TES connect
Published: 19th December 2008

Don’t wait to have your hand held when it comes to professional development, says Victoria Furness. Watch and learn from those around you. Illustration by Brian Grimwood.

End of term heralds a feeling of relief for many teachers, but while you relax into the Christmas break, take time to think about 2009 and what it might mean for you professionally. The new year marks the advent of the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL), the new qualification for teachers announced by the Government in March.

The National Union of Teachers has recently put together a series of modular courses with the University of
Cumbria that can be followed separately, or contribute towards the MTL.

And John Bangs, the union’s head of education, says: “The beginning of 2009 is the time to start thinking
about how you can take charge of your career. The MTL is going to be the currency of pedagogic leadership
in the future.”

The Government aims eventually for the new qualification to be open to all teachers, and expects that every
teacher should complete it over the course of their career.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, pledged at the qualification’s launch earlier this year: “It will raise the status of teachers and ensure that they get the recognition they deserve.”

It is important that you don’t sit around waiting to be offered continuous professional development (CPD) -
whatever approach you take. Elizabeth Holmes, author of Teacher Wellbeing and editor of CPD Week, says: “Rather than thinking ‘nobody sent me on a course’, think ‘I work in an environment where there is a lot of expertise and the possibility to learn every single day’.”

In England there’s no statutory requirement for teachers to undertake a set amount of CPD - in contrast,
teachers in Scotland are entitled to 35 hours of CPD every year. However, schools in England have five
school closure days that Liz Francis, director for the teachers programme at the Training and Development
Agency (TDA), says are used for training by most schools.

She says teachers should analyse their strengths and weaknesses to get the most out of CPD. “They should
have been identified through performance management, but measure yourself against the professional standards,
which set out expectations for different career stages, so you can identify the gaps and use CPD to fill
these.”

At Sharnbrook Upper School in Bedfordshire, four of the five school closure days are used to run workshops,
with some voluntary twilight sessions as well. On the remaining school closure day, staff visit another school
to identify practices that might fit into their own professional development. The school also encourages lesson
observation and feedback and there is an online “yellow pages”, which highlights school experts in areas such
as Microsoft Word software, so that teachers can learn about technology.