Schools and colleges exhaust vast amounts of time, money and resources on professional development, sometimes without the ability to reflect on its success and the impact it has had on staff, outcomes for pupils and the overall quality of teaching.

Most establishments have a paper-based portfolio of evidence used to record staff development, which houses things like certificates from courses and other evidential information.

These portfolios tend to be hard-copy and are not accessible or transparent to the wider leadership.

The process of applying for CPD opportunities also tends to be a paperchase and it’s difficult to keep track of which staff have attended which courses or activities and what has been the impact of any training. Using a tool like SchooliP (CollegeiP for Further Education) takes all of the hassles out of this process and provides the transparency needed to gain efficiencies in staff professional development outcomes and aids in the reporting to key stakeholders - like the governing body.

Your Personal Development Portfolio

SchooliP provides each staff member with their own unique portfolio, where they can blog about their experiences within the classroom and on professional development activities in addition to uploading supporting evidence and attributing this to their objectives, monitoring and the latest standards.

This portfolio is available from any browser or device with an Internet connection and is also accessible from mobile phones and tablets too. The process of gathering evidence and capturing the professional dialogue becomes very simple and is easily accommodated as part of a staff member’s daily routine.

Measuring Success

Through the setting of strategic SMART objectives, performing monitoring exercises like lesson observations and ensuring that staff are adhering to the latest standards or competencies, it is then possible to identify the strengths and areas which require improvement. SchooliP helps leaders to identify these training needs and facilitates the process of allocating activities and courses to staff who need it most.

Assigning Courses and Activities to staff

SchooliP provides several reports which help the leadership to understand the professional development needs and can easily filter the areas on a common theme or development focus, for example, Teaching and Learning or Behaviour Management. Once these common areas have been identified courses and activities whether internal or external, may be assigned to groups of staff in one simple operation.

Staff will then indicate their attendance on the course, provide a star rating (so we can visually see how well the course was received) and detail the impact that any training has had on the quality of teaching and the outcomes for pupils and staff. It’s also useful to know the feedback on the trainer and whether the school/college should use this provider again in the future. Staff may also add their own CPD activities. For example, they may visit a neighbouring school or be conducting their own research and they can record this valuable CPD in their personal portfolio.

Dealing with requests for CPD

Finally, SchooliP/CollegeiP empowers staff by enabling them to request their own professional development courses and activities. They may detail the course or activity, indicating the costs and dates of the event, so that cover can be arranged and the costs approved. Staff can link the activity to their objectives or standards, to add more weight to the request. All CPD requests are then distributed through an approval workflow, where each establishment can define the chain of approval. An email is sent to gain approval.

This sounds great - what do I do next?

Simply, book yourself and your team an online demonstration and we’ll explore the management of CPD with you and how our solutions can help. Alternatively, drop us an email with the name of your organisation and we’ll send you all the details with a tailored quote too!