We’ve all heard of the term CPD (‘Continuous Professional Development’) but what does it mean to you and your staff.  CPD plays a vital role in the success of your setting, your staff and the children within it. Without it, you and your staff won’t be able to give the children in your care the best start in life nor will your staff be able to effectively support you or one another.  Every role (whether it be paid or volunteering, supporting the children or in the background doing admin support) within a setting should be valued as it plays an important part in the whole jigsaw puzzle – if a piece is missing or doesn’t fit well then it can cause issues in the long run.

As a childcare professional you are expected to look after the mental, social, emotional and educational development of babies and young children so that is why ongoing CPD for you and your staff is so important.

The Ofsted Inspection Framework criteria for Management and Leadership at Outstanding level states:

“Leaders ensure that they and practitioners receive focused and highly effective professional development. Practitioners’ subject, pedagogical content and knowledge consistently builds and develops over time, and this consistently translates into improvements in the teaching of the curriculum.”

So it’s not just identifying the CPD required (Intention), not just having staff attend (Implementation) but also how this impacts on the setting (Impact).  As part of reflecting on your setting and practice it’s good to keep a log of what CPD training you and your staff have completed, why you undertook it and what benefits attending has had on you as an individual and the setting.

Ideally every staff member in your team should be expected and encouraged to undertake regular CPD opportunities to enable them to upskill and maintain their existing knowledge. However, this takes time and money, which as we all know is always limited. However, when you deliberate the cost of sending staff on training, try to balance your budget against the benefits any training will have long term on your provision and staff.  Some training is costly, especially to send all team members on it, but in the long run the benefits should far outweigh that initial cost.

Remember, your setting is only as good as the staff within – you can have all the best resources but without outstanding staff to support the use of those resources then it’s not going to work to its full potential.

So what counts as CPD?

CPD isn’t all about attending training courses. It can be covered with any of the following:

• Training          

- whether this be in person (face to face), interactive on-line (both of which PATA regularly offer), webinars, pre recorded training (watch this space for PATA’s first pre recorded training which will be available shortly)  and on-line training that can be undertaken at an individual’s own pace and time (e.g., Noodle Now training – see our PATA Members offer for Noodle Now training)

- Both CPD training courses and accredited training should be offered

• Attending conferences
• Group staff training sessions (e.g. bespoke training) and cascaded training (e.g. in a staff meeting someone reports on training that they’ve attended or something they’ve read and learnt and shares this with the whole team).
• Coaching and mentoring
• Observing others
• Professional discussion with other Early Years Practitioners
• Reading relevant articles – books, journals, magazines, newspapers (including physical publications and on-line)
• Blogs – just like this one.

What are the benefits of CPD?

CPD enables individuals to enhance and reinforce their current skills and addresses any knowledge shortfalls and gaps.

Engagement, morale, self-confidence and commitment within the workplace will increase and should result in happier and more committed staff! By having a variety of employees undertake CPD, concurrently or over a period of time you will allow the sharing of best practice and support. Staff potential is maximised and retention of good staff is also improved. CPD also gives you the opportunity to ensure staff’s understanding of practices.

• Benefits for the Employee

It ensures their skills are valid and up to date in their current and any future roles. It gives them aims and aspirations to work towards and a sense of purpose. It builds an individual’s confidence and will help them cope positively with change.

• Benefits for the Employer

It ensures that your setting’s standards are consistently high, you will see high morale, commitment and wellbeing improved within the workplace. By sharing training amongst all staff enables sharing to take place which helps with team building. You really will get the best out of your staff. You will also be ensuring that you are meeting all legal requirements.

How should you manage CPD within your setting?

• Ideally, you should have a planned CPD approach for each of your staff – this is a two way system where you can address areas of CPD that you would like a staff member to attend and staff are also able to advise you of CPD training they would like to do. Ask yourself regularly “where are the gaps?, What does that particular staff member know and do they fully understand it?”  Then you should regularly reflect on the gaps and the impact they have on your setting, the other staff and the children you care for. If the same gaps keep being highlighted then it’s time to address them.
• Ensure everyone gets the same opportunities for their CPD – staff may have preferences as to how they want to develop – one person may prefer face to face or on-line interactive training whereas someone else may prefer to read books or undertake training at their own pace and time. Sometimes it’s the same staff member asking for training but ensure everyone has the same opportunities and is encouraged to do training.
• When recruiting staff try to find out what the applicant’s career development and aspirations are and ensure they are willing to upskill and keep their current skills up to date. With recruitment currently causing challenges, it’s also a key staff benefit for someone to choose working for you if you can demonstrate to them that you will invest in them with CPD. 
• Staff development is also about listening to all staff, hearing their ideas for improvement and balancing any weaknesses with strengths.
• Ask your staff to regularly update you with their CPD – if you are aware they are reading an Early Years publication then ask them about it. It’s not just about the theory learnt at the training and having a certificate to say you attended or what they have learnt from reading a publication – it’s understanding how the theory that was learnt fits in with the children in the setting and how it can be applied to every child.  Ofsted will ask your staff questions and whilst it can be easy to give facts and figures it is important for staff to show they truly understand why they are doing something. A great way to check staffs understanding of what they have learnt is to ask a staff member who has attended training to ‘feed’ back to the rest of the team what they have learnt, perhaps in a staff meeting.  It’s all well and good having a certificate of attendance for a particular training session but what did they learn and gain from that training that can benefit the setting and children.

What is important to remember is that CPD is continuous – it is a cyclical process which doesn’t end as there will always be new things to learn, changes taking place. CPD comes in various forms and it’s not always about sending staff on training as it can be addressed in other forms. You need to invest time and money in staff so that they can be the best they can be for you.

We will always aim to provide training which is high quality, relevant and affordable and if there is a subject or area that you would like to see covered please get in touch and let us know on training@pataglos.org.uk