Whole School Staff Development – School Improvement, Cultural Change or a Waste Of Time??

Author(s):

Sara BubbPeter Earley

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 05 A, Whole School Influences

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-26

08:30-10:00

Room:

AUDITORIUM XV, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Sara Bubb

Contribution

This paper sets out to investigate the impact of whole school staff development initiatives. Do they make a difference or are they an expensive waste of resources?

We draw on the work of Kirkpatrick, Guskey and Joyce and Showers for conceptual frameworks for analyzing impact. Joyce and Showers (2002) concluded that for training to be truly effective it needs to include five components or stages. Their research showed that, without the opportunity to receive feedback and coaching, there is no measurable impact on classroom practice. We look at how schools judge impact, drawing on Guskey's view: 'Good evaluation does not need to be complex; what is necessary is good planning and paying attention to evaluation at the outset of the professional development program, not at the end'. (Guskey, 2002)

We will investigate whether schools are clear about levels of impact and exactly what pupil progress is expected as a result of staff development activities.

Method

It draws on a large scale research project investigating the outcomes of staff development in England in 2008. A questionnaire survey gained responses from 1612 senior staff, teachers and support staff from over 600 schools. We visited 35 schools as case studies interviewing 385 staff and 100 pupils. This research base is being added to: we are monitoring the impact of whole school staff development days in schools in both England and Norway.

Expected Outcomes

Schools in England are allocated five days for staff development when pupils are not on site. Our research evidence suggests that this time is not well spent. The Staff Development Outcomes study (Bubb et al, 2009) found that just four out of ten senior staff and teachers said that their school used their development days as five whole days and this resulted in extra days of holiday for most staff as the missing days were usually converted into after school sessions. Only a third of senior staff and four out of ten teachers reported that the whole of their last training day was used for training and development. When asked how useful development days had been over the last 12 months, over a third of senior staff thought they were ‘very useful’ in helping people develop. This was in contrast to teachers and support staff who found them less useful: about a quarter said they were ‘of little use’. We will draw on these findings to track the impact of a development day in a school in England and one in Norway.

References

Bubb, S., Earley, P. and Hempel-Jorgensen, A. (2009) Staff Development Outcomes Study, London: Institute of Education. Bubb, S and Earley, P (2010) Helping Staff Develop in Schools, London: Sage. Guskey, T. (2002) ‘Does it make a difference? Evaluating professional development’, Educational Leadership, March, 45–51. Joyce B. R. and Showers B. (2002) Student Achievement through Staff Development, (3rd edition), Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Storey, A, Banks, F, Cooper, D, Cunningham, P, Ebbutt, D, Fox, A, Morgan, B, Pedder, D and Wolfenden, F (2008) Schools and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in England – State of the Nation Research Project. London: TDA.

Author Information

Sara Bubb

Institute of Education, University of London

Bromley

Peter Earley

Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

LCLL

London

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