Continuing Professional Development, Part 2 - Spoilt for choice

As our relationship with technology has adjusted to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic – both socially and professionally – video-conferencing, online courses, webinars and podcasts have made continuing professional development (CPD) more accessible and cheaper than ever before.

‘The online marketplace has exploded,’ says early years specialist and host of Early Years TV, Kathy Brodie. ‘There is so much breadth, which is fantastic for practitioners, from in-depth webinars to half-hour podcasts. The benefits are enormous and you can just dip in at whatever level that you want to.’

Completion of online EduCare courses offered by the Early Years Alliance to its members was up 500 per cent between March and June 2020. Similarly, more than 20,000 people signed up to the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (Pacey) free training app, EY smart, 60 per cent of whom were new to the organisation.

While initially, online CPD was regarded as a stop gap for practitioners on furlough, more settings are building it into their regular CPD programmes. ‘I firmly believe that we will have conferences again in the future, but there will be a balance of that and online CPD,’ says Ms Brodie.

With this burst of online training, however, comes potential pitfalls. Iram Siraj, professor of child development and education at the University of Oxford, warns that, despite there being a ‘glut’ of training in the early years, ‘much of it is not evidence-based and some is not delivered by adequately qualified trainers’. Sandra Mathers, also of Oxford University, adds, ‘Of the programmes tested through research, there are as many showing no effects as there are successful ones.’

The theory

According to the supplementary guidance to Development Matters out last month, written by Julian Grenier and based on research from Prof Siraj and others, ‘[CPD] has to be planned carefully, delivered well, and regularly evaluated. It needs to be seen as a year-round activity, and not a one-off event.’ Mr Grenier recommends researching the evidence base using tools from the Education Endowment Foundation and the Early Intervention Foundation (see box).

For CPD to really change practice, it has to be of significant duration (around 20 hours, according to research). This will seem like a huge ask to many settings, both financially and as a time investment, but this is a mixture of teaching and practice, with coaching, staff discussions and peer support all forming an important part of the mix (see part 1 of this series).

Selecting quality CPD that will have a long-term, positive impact on your practice is hard. Ms Brodie says start by knowing why you are doing it. ‘It is important to understand the outcomes that you want – is it practical or that deeper level, for instance – before you look for a webinar or online course, because even if it is really good online CPD, it may not be right for you at that time,’ says Ms Brodie.

And of course you should always opt for CPD with a reputable provider. ‘It is very easy to press that button and just join a free webinar, and you don’t know who that person is,’ she says.

‘It is the same as with any choosing face-to-face training, you need to check out their website, books that they have written or other things that they have done, to ensure they know their stuff.’

In practice

Practitioners like online CPD as it is flexible, cheap and can be done at an individual pace. While only one staff member can often be spared to attend a conference, whole staff teams, nursery groups or childminding networks can hold virtual ‘watch parties’ and then discuss and reflect on the content.

Childminder Chloe Webster, from Pebbles Childcare in Worthing, West Sussex, turned to online CPD during lockdown to reflect on her practice. ‘Unlike attending a training session, you can watch and re-watch video clips and re-read specific areas when you want to,’ she says. ‘I am able to complete CPD at a time that suits me. I like it when a course includes individual additional links and resources so that I can delve deeper into the subject and extend my learning.’

Cassie Holland, manager of Archfield House Day Nursery in Cotham, Bristol, says, ‘As a setting, we used to turn our nose up at online CPD. My personal experience of it was of clicking through boxes, which was not engaging or a good way of learning. We were finding it more challenging to provide quality face-to-face CPD because of accessibility and the expense, but felt that online training was a cop-out and didn’t provide our people with a quality experience.

‘As time has gone on – and especially since the pandemic – a lot of reputable consultants, early years experts and organisations that are well known for their training have moved online. The technology has also improved and you can now often interact with the trainers, rather than it simply being a recording. There is now so much quality online CPD to choose from that it means training can be personalised and fit practitioners’ needs and interests.’

Ms Holland says they see CPD as a personal journey. ‘We have recently introduced reflective diaries where practitioners are encouraged to make notes on what CPD they have done so that they can build a record of their CPD and action plans. These are used as part of our regular supervisions, so we identify what training each person wants or needs to support their work in order to build a personalised package.’

While perhaps nothing beats face-to-face contact for networking, online CPD has led to practitioners connecting with others in different settings in this country and also globally. Learners from at least 132 different countries have participated in the free six-week Open University ‘Supporting Physical Development in Early Childhood’ course, with Lala Manners, who is director of Active Matters and was involved in developing the course, reporting that it led to fascinating geographical and cultural comparisons.

Ms Holland likes the fact that they can access CPD virtually they would never have been able to attend in person. She says, ‘I have joined a Centre for Research in Early Childhood learning circle. They are based in Birmingham and I would not have been able to go up there for a couple of hours, but the opportunity opened up to me online. My director and I have been undertaking Mental Health First Aid England online training focusing on employees’ mental health. Having two days out of nursery would have been disruptive and expensive, but we were able to do it online for two hours twice a week over a fortnight.

‘There is lots of quality free training to access online, such as the OpenLearn series of courses from the Open University – ranging from introductory to advanced level – that some of our practitioners have enjoyed. A lot of our practitioners have also found the EY Matters six-week look at Early Childhood Theorists very useful, and the Saturday conferences.’

She adds, ‘Our monthly staff meetings are now conducted by Zoom, and much of our CPD during this time is inspired by webinars or online discussions that we’ve had and can bring to the team to use as a provocation. Our last meeting was on anti-racism and equality and what that looks like. Practitioners shared their research and reading, and we reflected on what we had learned.’

Selecting the right CPD

• Think about why you want to engage in CPD – how will your staff and the children in your care benefit?
• Look at the aims, content and outcomes to ensure it is right for your setting.
• Be as rigorous with selecting online training as you would with face-to-face, don’t be swayed just because it is free or has a charismatic presenter.
• Look at the evidence base of the training by using tools such as ITERS or ECERS, the Early Intervention Foundation’s report, Teaching, pedagogy and practice in early years childcare: An evidence review, or the Education Endowment Foundation’s Early Years Toolkit.
• Try and make CPD a year-round activity, with 20 hours minimum spent in different ways.
• Personalise CPD to your team members by selecting opportunities that not only fill a need but appeal to their learning style, such as interactive webinars, videos or podcasts.
• If possible, enable more than one practitioner to access the same CPD opportunities in order to increase engagement and help to embed learning.
• Reflect as a team on your CPD, share ideas and think how you are using what you have learned to improve your practice and benefit the children in your care.