In recent years professional development has shifted from being something “done to” teachers to something that schools are increasingly expected to design with care and coherence.

Senior leaders now expect their middle leaders to take a greater role in this. For a head of department, that means CPD is not just an occasional slot on the meeting agenda - it is part of shaping the professional growth of your team.

But how do you go about it? The same way you would with students: through curriculum thinking.

Why do we need a CPD curriculum?

Too often CPD has been a random collection of sessions dictated by external providers or the latest initiative from SLT. Staff leave the hall with handouts and good intentions, but little changes in classrooms.

The lesson here is the same as with student learning: without a clear curriculum, knowledge is forgotten, habits do not shift and progress stalls.

A departmental CPD curriculum should have three elements:

• Intent: what are the specific priorities for your team?
• Implementation: how will you organise learning over time so it sticks?
• Impact: how will you know that CPD has made a difference? This is not about producing a glossy document; it is about being deliberate.

Step one: identify your priorities

The starting point is diagnosis. Just as you would not teach without assessing prior knowledge, you should not plan CPD without understanding your team’s needs. Sources might include:

• Student outcomes: are there persistent gaps in performance for certain groups?
• Lesson observations and walks: do you see common strengths and weaknesses?
• Curriculum demands: are there new topics or exam changes that your team needs to master?
• Staff voice: what do colleagues themselves feel they need to develop?

Be careful, though. Spotting a symptom is not the same as finding the cause. A gender gap in exam results might look like an engagement issue, but the root cause could be weaker literacy, misconceptions in subject content or gaps in study skills. Time spent unpicking this pays off.

Once you have clarity, articulate your CPD intent as a small number of challenging, high-leverage goals. “Improve questioning” is vague; “develop the use of dialogic teaching to deepen analysis of texts” is sharper.

Step two: plan for progression

With your priorities clear, you now need to map out how CPD will unfold. Here it helps to think in terms of a learning journey. Just as you would scaffold a unit of work, CPD should build from foundations to fluency.

A useful model is David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, which consists of: theory, planning, practice and reflection. Too often CPD gets stuck at the theory stage, with teachers hearing about retrieval practice or modelling but not being given time to apply, experiment and refine. In your department, structure CPD so staff:

• Learn the principle through research input, case studies or modelling.
• Plan how to apply it in departmental meetings, adapting it to their subject.
• Trial in lessons, ideally with opportunities for peer observation or coaching.
• Reflect together, sharing what worked, what did not and refining practice.

By cycling through this process, strategies move from abstract ideas to embedded habits.

Step three: balance whole-school, departmental and individual needs

Your CPD curriculum will sit within the bigger picture of school priorities, but it also needs to reflect the subject-specific expertise of your team. Generic training has its place, but real impact comes when teachers connect pedagogy with the precise demands of their discipline.

For example, retrieval practice in science might mean low-stakes quizzes on formulae, while in history it could mean recall of key arguments before tackling an essay. Department CPD time should be the forum for making those adaptations explicit.

At the same time, remember that individuals are at different stages. Novices benefit from more structured training and concrete examples. Experts often prefer to interrogate research and design their own solutions. A good CPD curriculum recognises this diversity.

Step four: build a culture of trust and challenge

Even the best curriculum falters without the right culture. Teachers need to feel that CPD is about growth, not surveillance. That means:

• Professional curiosity: encourage experimentation and discussion of mistakes.
• Collaborative reflection: make department meetings spaces to talk about teaching, not just admin.
• Coaching and peer support: pair colleagues up to give feedback in a low-stakes way.

At the same time, CPD should be challenging. Just as pupils do not learn without thinking hard, teachers will not change practice without tackling difficult problems. Closing attainment gaps, improving subject literacy or refining assessment practice are tough goals, but they are the ones worth pursuing.

Step five: evaluate impact intelligently

Impact matters, but it cannot just mean exam results. Too many factors outside a department’s control influence those. Instead think about shorter-term indicators:

• Are teachers using the strategy more confidently?
• Are misconceptions being addressed more effectively?
• Do students report finding lessons clearer or more engaging?
• Does work scrutiny show improvements in quality over time?

Gather evidence through a mixture of surveys, collaborative reviews of student work and professional conversations. Keep the focus developmental, not punitive.

Avoiding the pitfalls

There are some common traps to avoid:

• Too much, too quickly: producing a long shopping list of initiatives dilutes focus. Choose one or two priorities and stick with them.
• One-off events: CPD is not an Inset day. It is a continuous process.
• Assuming compliance equals impact: seeing a strategy in lessons does not mean it is understood or effective. Always get under the skin of why it works.

The prize for all of this is a department that keeps getting better

Done well, a CPD curriculum gives teachers agency, clarity and purpose. It turns departmental meetings from administrative chores into genuine professional learning communities. It allows middle leaders to model scholarship, enquiry and collaboration - the very values we want pupils to see in us.

As one teacher reflected after engaging in such a process: “There is always something new to discover and learn. Keep reading, keep researching, keep sharing and keep moving your practice forward.”

That is what departmental CPD should feel like. Not another hoop to jump through, but part of the shared journey of getting better together.

Mark Enser is a writer and works in school support. His latest book How Do They Do It? is out now

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