Teachers And Continuing Professional Development
As teachers you are blessed with not only teaching your students but continuing to teach yourself too. While the rest of the world wakes up to the unveiling of Continuing professional development. You and millions of others across the teaching world are far too aware that you have been demonstrating this new fad for the last half a century.
Fad or not, continually educating yourself through CPD or as the majority used to call it, a refresher course, is one of the greatest ways to keep yourself in the loop on both industry knowledge, industry advances and what is happening in the world relating to your chosen topic. But does it apply to you? Well yes, if you're an England based teacher then your union has jolly well placed your hand in the air for at least thirty five hours of continuing professional development on an annual basis. This will be a partnership effort between you and a team manager.
You will be able to choose your own topic of interest for CPD points. These could be based around the subject you teach or a form of personalisation such as familiarising yourself with new teaching methods or other academic papers.
CPD is not only about furthering your eduction and learning power while in the midst of your career. It's about giving you further opportunities to excel in your job, advance your career in the organisation you are working within and benefit from better knowledge, a more determined focus and increased pay through advancing up the career ladder.
Many teachers ask if time spent on the Chartered Teacher Programme counts towards the 35-hour commitment? The answer is that there may well be some overlap but ideally these are two separate junctures of performance so it wouldn't be advisable to rely on it as such. You are monitored on your CPD activity through several ways though this is more about empowering yourself than having someone breathing down your neck to complete the hours required. during your annual professional review meeting, you will be expected to cover your progress with regards to CPD.
Some schools insist on monitoring in full your compliance with the CPD portfolio, in fact "The maintenance of a CPD Portfolio will also be encouraged as good practice for all teachers. The maintenance of a portfolio will be a condition of entry to the Chartered Teacher Programme."
One other question regarding Teachers And Continuing Professional Development is do thy have to pay for the CPD themselves? The answer in most cases, is no they don't and forms a part of your union benefits.