Meeting the DfE Standards for Teacher Development

In July 2016, the Department for Education (DfE) released Standards for Teacher Development . As a provider of professional development, we feel a responsibility to ensure that our CPD offer meets these standards. When they were published we carried out an extensive mapping exercise comparing our CPD offer against the standards, and now nearly 8 years on, we are revisiting this work, to show you how our products and services continue to meet these standards.

Standard 1: Professional development should have a clear focus on improving and evaluating student outcomes.

We continue to agree that the focus of professional development should always be improving student outcomes. In our webinars and self-guided courses, we spend a lot of time discussing the idea of 'what works.' We don't want teachers to implement changes just because we told them to - we want them to do what works in their context. We always make it clear that teachers should test out the ideas they develop from our programmes back in their own setting, and take the time to really evaluate the impact. There is no one-size-fits-all method for any aspect of education, so if your changes aren't having the desired impact on student outcomes, it's time to think again.

We also recognise that level of teacher skill and confidence has a major impact on student outcomes. In primary settings (and increasingly at KS3 thanks to the teacher recruitment crisis) music is often taught by 'non-specialist' teachers, with varying degrees of discomfort! Through our non-specialist courses such as Confidence in Primary Music we empower teachers to take control of their own musical learning, becoming more confident in the basics of music-making. Teachers who have been through these courses with us report that once they are feeling more confident and skilled there is a profound impact on student outcomes.

On our longer-term CPD programmes, learners are encouraged to set goals based around pupil outcomes, and to evaluate these at regular intervals. The Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators has a particularly strong focus on evaluation of student outcomes, since all the evidence for this qualification is generated in the working environment, comprising a portfolio of students' work, assessments, lesson observations, and refelections on these. Our Primary and Secondary Music Leadership Certificate contain a number of Action Learning Challenges, inviting participants to try out ideas in the classroom and monitor impact on student outcomes. Participants are also encouraged to stay in touch with us and each other, and report back on student progress during the process.

Standard 2: Professional development should be underpinned by robust evidence and expertise.

The content devised for our courses, CPD programmes and INSET sessions draws heavily on the work of music education theorists from the 20th and 21st centuries, in the UK and beyond. We also use the practical and research experience of our team to inform and develop our CPD content. We only use consultants with national and international reputations in music education, ensuring a high level of expertise in both content design and delivery. In our team we have one professor and three doctorates, as well as several MA level researchers. A large number of our team are published in academic journals, and many are also published authors, with Dr Liz Stafford's Primary Music Leader's Handbook (HarperCollins 2021) and Kay Charlton's How to Teach Whole Class Instrumental Lessons (HarperCollins 2019) being the two most recently released publications. We regularly engage in independent research projects, and the findings from these are worked into our products and services where relevant, to ensure that everything we do is based on current, up-to-the-minute research. You can find out about our most recent research projects here.

Our accredited programme the Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators is externally quality assured twice; firstly by Professor Karen Burland of the University of Leeds, and then by the exam board Trinity College London. This extra layer of quality assurance ensures that we are upholding the most rigorous standards for our learners.

Standard 3: Professional development should include collaboration and expert challenge.

Our Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators begins with a Needs Analysis process, where the learner works an expert mentor to identify areas for development through co-analysis of practice. The mentor’s role is to draw out the learner’s needs and concerns and build a plan to address these. They are also required, when necessary, to challenge the learner using the benefit of their music education expertise.

Our large-scale events such as the Curriculum Music Conference are developed in partnership with the host organisation (usually a music hub) to take into account local needs. We then work with a range of external partners to build a programme which gives the delegates exactly what they need from the event, whilst at the same time broadening their experience of methods, ideas, and research that they may not have known about. Delegates are encouraged to actively participate, to ask questions for clarification, and share their own ideas which then feed into future events.

When clients approach us to devise INSET training, they often already have a clear idea of their team’s needs. If not, we work with them to suggest ways in which they can ascertain what topics and activities their team would find most supportive. We believe that is always better to devise bespoke training to suit the individual organisation, rather than provide a one-fits-all solution. That said, there are always recurring themes across INSET requests from different organisations, so we provide a list of topics as a starting point for discussion.

Standard 4: Professional development programmes should be sustained over time.

We agree that a shorter session cannot have the impact of a sustained programme, however it is an unfortunate reality that due to time pressures and cost implications the majority of teachers will not be able to access an in-person long term programme. Our online self-guided courses are designed to combat this, giving teachers a full 6 months' access to learning materials to work through at their own convenience. Our Leadership Certificates adopt a blended learning approach, with three half day webinars spread over a term, accompanied by online learning materials and classroom challenges to carry out inbetween sessions. And our Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators is a flexible programme of up to two years in length, to allow learners to get really stuck in to their professional development!

Each year our webinar series is carefully curated to provide a broad and balanced CPD offer. Some teachers will attend multiple webinars over the course of the year, and benefit more from this. However, we do think it is important to have something to offer teachers who may only be 'allowed out' once a year for music, and/or have limited budget to spend. We know from participant feedback that teachers do find these one-off webinars beneficial, particularly if (as we encourage them to do) they start implementing the ideas from them into their practice immediately.

We also work alongside music hubs to co-create yearly programmes of CPD which give schools in their area a chance to focus on developing their music in a sustained way over time. These are always informed by intial requests from schools, so that a useful and relevant programme can be created so that teachers feel that they are investing their time wisely rather than sitting through sessions that have little relevance to them.

Standard 5: Professional development must be prioritised by school leadership.

The list of things that school leadership are meant to 'prioritise' is very long! In our experience most SLT see the value of teacher development, but often budgetary and time considerations are the sticking point. We work with leaders from schools and music hubs on everything from long-term teacher development and mentoring programmes over several years, down to quick 'in and out' INSET sessions. We understand that different schools have different priorities and that these change over time, so programmes have to be designed on a bespoke basis to suit the school's individual siutation. It's not that SLT don't prioritise professional development, it's that they have lots of other things to prioritise too!

Sometimes though, teachers tell us that they 'cannot' have 'time off' for training during the school day and have to do it in their own time, and even have to pay for it themselves as well. Other sectors would be aghast at the idea that you have to do your work-based training in your own time, and as for spending your own money on it - not a chance! We don't want to perpetuate this problem by offering evening and weekend courses, but at the same time we recognise that some teachers will never be able to convince their school to allow them to participate during the school day. As a compromise we programme shorter sessions in the 'twilight' slot around 4pm when teachers can still be reasonably expected to be at school within 'work hours' but don't have to worry about getting cover for their classes in order to attend. Our line in the sand is when sessions need to be longer than 1.5 hours; these always take place during the school day, and we are very happy to talk to teachers and their SLT about why release time to attend is an important investment into student outcomes in the long run.

To conclude

The DfE Teacher Development Standards have provided a good basis for us to evaluate the training and other CPD-related services that we provide. Whilst some of the standards are out of our direct control, we can still be mindful of them when designing solutions that meet the needs of schools and music hubs. We are always happy to discuss our philosophy and working methods with prospective clients so do get in touch here if you would like to start a conversation.

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