The main aim of this 2008 study, funded by England's Training and Development Agency for Schools, was to investigate whether and how staff development leads to improved outcomes for both pupils and staff. We investigated 35 schools, 25 of which achieved exceptionally high value added pupil results and 10 where pupils did well, to see what contribution staff development played. Guskey's framework for evaluting impact was used to judge impact at different levels. The school culture was found to be significant so we used the conceptual frameworks relating to communities of practice and learning communities. We interviewed a range of staff to understand how needs were identified and met and how impact was measured and sustained. We then carried out a large national questionnaire survey of senior leaders, teachers and support staff to seek answers to questions that had emerged from the case studies. The findings from this study will be of interest to other European countries.

Qualitative and quantitative methods were used. We started in January 2008 by researching the outcomes of staff development in 25 high performing schools. In March the project was extended to investigate ten schools that were not so effective, bringing the total number of case studies to 35: 19 primary, 12 secondary and 4 special schools. In total, 385 staff (198 teachers) and 100 pupils were interviewed. Two-thirds of our case study sample had pupils with high levels of deprivation. A questionnaire survey in autumn 2008 gained responses from 1612 senior staff, teachers and support staff from over 600 schools.

Our research found that there was a positive association between school outcomes and staff development. However, there was not a clear cut relationship between school performance and staff development regimes: the high performing case study schools mostly had strong staff development. We also found an association between the quality of the case study schools’ staff development and levels of pupil deprivation: schools with low numbers of pupils entitled to free school meals were more likely to have strong staff development than those with high numbers. Time was perceived to be the greatest barrier to staff development and yet we found it was generally not being used well, especially that devoted to ‘training’ or closure days.