Introduction:

This proposal seeks to understand the ways in which the child-facing school workforce in England access Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Continuing Professional Development (CPD). It reports on selected findings from a large national survey where participants were asked to reflect on access to differing types of CPD, their preferences for these and their perception of impact. Participants were also asked about the sources of school-based training and support and whether CPD for SEND was a priority for their own CPD and school development.  The research was conducted between October 2021 and February 2022, as part of the wider Schools’ contract with nasen and Whole School SEND with the aim of informing the direction of future SEND CPD provision in English schools.

Background:

Keegan (2019, p. 110) describes CPD as ‘the means by which teachers develop the knowledge and skills to enhance the teaching and learning experience of their students’ adding that the potential of CPD extends to the development of implementing pedagogies and content. Leonardi et al. (2021, p. 5) define CPD as ‘intentional process and activities which aim to enhance the professional knowledge, skills and attitudes of teachers in order to improve students’ outcomes. This includes activities delivered by and/or organised by the teacher, colleagues, their school, another school or an external provider’. Makopoulou et al. (2019) suggest that CPD is broadly considered to be professional learning, a formal activity. The consensus across all of this research is that there needs to be impact; namely with a focus on improving teaching and learning and therefore outcomes for pupils (DfE, 2016).

Whilst there may be discussions regarding the breadth and impact of CPD, there is agreement that CPD should be a priority for schools. The Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development states that the professional development of teachers must be prioritised by the leaders in school (Department for Education, 2016). However, despite such calls to prioritise access to SEND CPD and expertise, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, SEND related CPD was not typically considered a priority within schools (Wall et al., 2019) but often regarded as high priority for individuals, especially those who work in a SEND related role (Dobson & Douglas, 2020).

Since the pandemic, evidence would suggest that more school staff are increasingly seeking forms of SEND related CPD to help understand how to adapt teaching to meet the needs of learners with SEND (Ofsted, 2023).  This is understandable as with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, access to CPD and expertise had been adversely affected. Leonardi et al. (2021) found that CPD in general was de-prioritised due to the COVID-19 pandemic and for teachers this was particularly acute during the immediate period that followed the lockdown of schools in March 2020. Yet conversely, they found that the COVID-19 pandemic equally provided some teachers with greater autonomy to develop their own CPD interests due to the growth in online communications.

Against a rapidly changing educational landscape, the present research sought to build on previous work focused on access to SEND CPD by Wall et al. (2019) through specifically exploring the types of SEND CPD accessed, with specific consideration of priority, preference, and impact. This research, therefore, considers what has changed in the interim period in a post COVID-19 era. Specifically, the research aimed to:

• Understand access to different forms of SEND related CPD.
• Understand what forms most SEND focused CPD in schools.
• Understand the preferences of the school workforce for different forms of CPD.
• Understand the perceived impact of CPD.

Understand who delivers the CPD during in-service training.  

After ethical approval was granted by host institution, a self-report survey was conducted across schools and settings in England using the online tool Qualtrics. Information about the purposes of the survey was presented after which active consent was sought. Respondents were asked to complete further short sections that included questions relating to: • Their school or setting - including type of school, English region, and Ofsted grade. • Continuing professional development - including questions focused on types of CPD and courses. Further questions were asked about impact, preference, and frequency of these different types of CPD opportunities. • Questions about SEND CPD in the school or setting - questions probed whether SEND CPD was a personal and/or institutional priority. • Further questions explored how training was delivered within each setting. The targeted population of the national survey was the entire school workforce in England. The sampling was opportunistic in nature and was promoted through a variety of different methods listed below: • Cohorts of students on the National Award for SEN Coordination (NA SENCO) programme at a self-selecting group of higher education providers. • Groups of schools within teacher education and general networks within a self-selecting group of higher education providers. • Twitter feeds by the report authors, their institutions, and a variety of other providers. • Communications by Whole School SEND and nasen to members. Data collected at the end of the survey revealed teachers formed the majority of respondents, with those on the leadership scale forming 20.9% of the sample and class teachers or subject teachers forming 37.4% of the sample. Teaching assistants formed 16.1% of the sample. Most respondents worked in primary schools (50.1%) or secondary schools (23.2%) with a large proportion also working in all-through special schools (8.6%). Most respondents worked in a maintained (local authority) school (41.3%) or an academy (48.8%). Most academies (81.6%) were part of a multi-academy trust. Most schools had been rated good by Ofsted (64.5%). The national survey had 977 initial responses. The dataset was further cleaned through the removal of participants who consented but provided no further data or who did not answer the full set of questions about CPD. An additional set of respondents were removed who did not work in England. This resulted in 637 responses. The resultant data were organised using SPSS v.28.

SEND CPD is a viewed as priority for many individuals and schools, with over half of the online survey respondents stating that developing effective practice for children with SEND was an essential priority for their own SEND CPD. The school workforce is accessing SEND CPD in a variety of formats, although typically when CPD was considered, this was often taken to mean formal training which is synonymous with the individual occurrence of the traditional after school ‘staff meeting’ or ‘training day’. However, this form of SEND CPD was not always considered, by the school workforce, as the most impactful. Preference for CPD is another important factor. It is of note that of the five most preferred forms of CPD, all involve gaining information from a credible source. For example, this may be the university/college lecturer, the specialist teacher, or a trainer with specialist knowledge. Meanwhile, sources such as social media are less preferred which may be due to the potential validity of the information provided. Another factor relates to time and approach. The most preferred forms of CPD are structured face to face programmes that lead to formal qualifications including higher and further education. By their nature, these longer programmes will contain a range of different learning experiences, opportunities for the application of knowledge and opportunities for social interaction through activities including formal and informal tutorials and working alongside peers. It is of note then that two of the top three most preferred form of CPD are characterised by this longitudinal approach. Consequently, there appears to be a mismatch between preferred and accessible CPD. Schools may therefore be advised to consider CPD budgets that increase access to external training or higher education and other forms of formal learning.

Department for Education. (2016). Standard for teachers’ professional development. In. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/537030/160712_-_PD_standard.pdf Dobson, G. J., & Douglas, G. (2020). Factors influencing the career interest of SENCOs in English schools. British Educational Research Journal, 46(6), 1256-1278. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3631 Makopoulou, K., Neville, R. D., Ntoumanis, N., & Thomas, G. (2019). An investigation into the effects of short-course professional development on teachers’ and teaching assistants’ self-efficacy. Professional development in education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2019.1665572 Keegan, R. (2019). Unleashing the Powers Within: Delving Into Our Own Talents to Provide Effective CPD. The Physical educator, 76(1), 110-134. https://doi.org/10.18666/TPE-2019-V76-I1-7718 Leonardi, S., Spong, S., Lamb, H., Howe, P., Francis, N., & Milner, C. (2021). CPD Challenge: Progress before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. http://cfe.org.uk/app/uploads/CPD-Challenge-progress-before-and-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic.pdf Wall, K., Van Herwegen, J., Shaw, A., Russell, A., & Roberts, A. (2019). A Study of the Drivers, Demand and Supply for Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND)- Related Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for School Staff. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082917/7/PDF4%20-%20Drivers%20Demands%20and%20Supply.pdf