Edd Brown on How to Create Outstanding CPD – PP103

Edd Brown is Improving Teaching and Learning Manager at Weston College, where he has been since he started his teaching career as a sports lecturer, nearly 13 years ago. How do you get staff excited about professional development? Edd understands the difficulty of finding time for CPD in FE. Weston has a blended approach to try and tackle this issue. They combine full INSET days with a range of strategies to help staff access CPD on a daily basis as and when they require it. It’s tracked through the virtual learning environment in a tool Weston has developed called 360 Degree CPD. Weston sees the value in supporting staff’s CPD and so they invest in it. So staff can access CPD outside the College from external suppliers or attend conferences. Edd tells us that the process to where they are today started in 2010 when they worked hard to define the baseline in CPD. From here they could target the aspects which staff needed the most. Before this culture change in 2010, Edd describes CPD at Weston as ‘quite fluffy’ – it didn’t have a lot which was teaching, learning and assessment focussed. What have you learned no to do in CPD? Whole day INSETS are just less effective. These are often held at the end of busy terms for staff and this means they are often not as engaged in the CPD as he would like them to be. However, an organisation the size of Weston has to get staff together for things like mandatory training so they work hard to balance that with a varied programme on the days so that each INSET day is different in terms of structure or types of sessions. This is combined with a series of shorter, ‘light bite’ activities staff can access throughout the year. Teachmeet Weston runs its own version of Teachmeet… Contact Edd on [email protected] Tweeter of the Week: https://twitter.com/mikercameron Pivotal Podcast Popcorn – listen and subscribe now! Read the rest of the show notes on the Pivotal Education site NEW! Pivotal Education’s New App: The new app for Apple and Android devices contains everything you need to know about Pivotal as well as access to our podcasts, resources, videos and news: (Creative Commons Sound clip by Johnny Pixel Productions, Inc. – http://www.johnny-pixel.com/ http://www.freesound.org/people/jppi_Stu/) What would you like to hear covered in forthcoming episodes? Let us know by emailing [email protected] * Subscribe to the podcast * Listen for free every week * Send in your comments or questions * Get involved!