As Assistant Headteacher for teaching and learning, I sometimes act as a filtering system for each newly promoted CPD offer and educational package. This term, my inbox was suddenly busy with some very similar-looking emails. Several colleagues forwarded the same link to some promising CPD: ‘Seen this?’, ‘Could be useful?’, ‘Of interest?’...

On this occasion, I replied in the affirmative: “Yes! Has potential!”

‘Potential’ may sound lukewarm, but it is just cautious pragmatism. Despite the promise of the CPD offer in question, its effectiveness inevitably depends on the quality of implementation. As with any CPD, how we might use it requires careful planning.

The promising CPD link came from the Department for Education. It was the announcement of their newly published Supporting Reading in Secondary Schools: Guidance and Workbook for all Secondary School Practitioners.  The course is developed by Professor Jessie Ricketts of Royal Holloway, University of London and the training is closely aligned with the Department for Education’s Reading Framework. There are many reasons it piqued my interest. Not least because the economic and social cost of illiteracy is well documented. According to a White Paper by the World Literacy Foundation there has been a 30% decrease since 2012 in the number of children from low-income/disadvantaged homes who do not own children’s books or read regularly.

CPD that addresses these issues is welcome, but it is for us as school leaders to decide how best to implement it. The first decision I was left pondering was - who with?

Our first instincts might be to share this CPD with the English Department, but this is most likely misguided. In my years as an English teacher, and in my previous life as a Head of English, I have lost count of how many literacy-related strategies have been sent my way. Unsurprisingly, I noticed that when receiving emails about this latest guidance, it was our Head of English who was very often cc'd in. Whilst forwarding Reading Guidance for the attention of the Head of English has obvious logic, it does somewhat miss the point. In fact, the DfE explicitly states that the programme ‘may be most useful for teachers who: do not have English as their subject specialism; and have not had recent Continuing Professional Development (CPD) on reading.’ 

Broadening engagement of teachers beyond the English department makes sense, given the title of the DfE’s CPD: “Guidance and workbook for all secondary practitioners.”  This chimes with the disciplinary, subject-specific approach for which the DfE advocates(this is one of several ways the DfE framework overlaps with the EEF’s Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools Guidance Report). A disciplinary approach to reading means that subject-specific consideration is vital. So, it is up to school leaders to encourage this, particularly with subject teachers who may benefit most.

Ultimately, I have concluded that decisions about identifying staff for engagement should be informed by knowledge of our actual curriculum (and the progress of our students within it). What do we know about which departments are already effective in the strategies suggested? If we can see that a subject curriculum is choosing curriculum texts carefully and if there is good evidence students are exploring vocabulary, we might take confidence that the CPD in relation to these strategies is less urgent for teachers of this subject. But of course, the reverse is also true. The better school leaders understand the curriculum in action, the better able we are to spot where support may be needed. If we identify subjects where reading opportunities and the teaching of reading could be enhanced, these are likely to be the teachers to support.

For my school setting, I am aware of some subjects that have new topics or schemes of work in development due to curriculum change or refinement. In this context, the CPD becomes especially useful. For example, when planning a unit of work, the CPD might help a teacher to consider how they will “activate background knowledge to access a text” and how they will “check for student comprehension”.

Once the appropriate staff have been identified, perhaps the simplest thing is for the relevant Head of Department to drip-feed the short training videos as an agenda item in department meetings. By distributing the responsibility to the subject leader, they are best placed to do justice to the disciplinary approach and to decide upon the timing of when these training materials might be shared.

Ultimately, for any new CPD to work, we need to avoid the one-size fits all approach and allow subject leaders to shape the subject-specific aspects of implementation. The new DfE Reading Guidance is no exception.

About the Author: Tom Stevens is an Assistant Headteacher at Notre Dame High School, Norwich. He is also an ELE for Norfolk Research School.