Starting from scratch: How to base your school's pedagogy CPD programme on cognitive science and research.

By Benjamin Barker @BenjaminDBarker

In January I started a new chapter in my professional career, moving on from a Vice Principal role at a fantastic start-up free school in Warrington, to be a founding Head of School at a newly opening free school in Manchester. In September we will open our doors for the first time to one hundred and twenty year seven pupils, seven teaching staff as well as seven non-teaching colleagues.

For the last half a year, there have been plenty of items that have been on my to-do list, some that may be of no surprise:

• Hiring staff

• Appointing governors

• Creating schemes of work and resources

• Formulating timetables and so on

There have been some tasks that I would definitely put in the group labeled ‘will take you out of your comfort zone’, namely:

• Legal meetings discussing builder contracts

• Council meetings looking at the legalities of turning circles and site access

• Conversations circling the finer points of where to put switches and access points

There has been one job however that I have been incredibly excited to get started on. Putting together the staff CPD plan for our first term in the run-up to Christmas. In my previous role, staff development was something that I worked closely on with colleagues. With such a small teacher cohort, I felt that it was even more important to get this right with our new staff. What would the weekly staff development programme look like?

One experience that always sticks with me is when I was treated to a flying lesson for a recent birthday. I remember the pilot at the time talking me through some of the physics of the flight, as a science teacher, I wasn’t complaining. What did strike me was his vast knowledge of not just the plane, how it worked and how it was to be flown but also why everything worked. Yes, the wings provide lift but more than that - the faster-moving air over the top of the wing creates a lower pressure and that’s why the wing generates lift. On and on the conversations went high over Liverpool about vectors, angles, drag, and so on. Whilst reflecting on this it struck me as impressive, the overall grasp the pilot had of the whole plane and experience. Much the same I can imagine a doctor or nurse would have a good sound knowledge of how the body works. I then considered the equivalent hypothetical question;

If you were to ask 100 teachers, how do pupils learn, or why do pupils struggle to remember, how many of them would know the truth behind it?

I took that question as an opportunity to try and not only find the answers, but also consider if I wanted my new teachers to know the same, and how could I help them along the way. Having done some research I decided that the first theory I would want to tackle was Cognitive Load Theory. In a tweet, Dylan Wiliam describes it as ‘the single most important thing for teachers to know’ - this seemed, therefore, like a good place to start.

The book I chose was called Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory in Action by Oliver Lovell - a fantastic read that not only gives you the science behind why people struggle or succeed to process some information but also what this can look like in a wide range of lessons and contexts. It helps explain the reason behind why we struggle to remember a phone number when read out to us, why a slide full of text that is read through can be redundant and how to break up tasks so that pupils are always using their cognitive skills to the best of their ability without them being overloaded and taxed. 

An incredibly easy read, written by an educator who has done a wide range of reading into the theory. This book has helped me draw my own conclusions in what might help our staff and pupils in terms of how they intend to:

• plan their lessons

• create their resources

• segment part of the information to pupils

• create their own revision resources

• lookout for certain pedagogies in lessons they are walking through

The great part about this is the author has managed to do such a good job of wider reading and referencing this throughout, so it gives the reader the opportunity to not only go ahead and delve into the issues wider but also feel confident that the ideas discussed have been part of a peer-reviewed process. Not simply anecdotes but scientifically accepted ideas.

The next book that I moved onto was Rosenshine's Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington. The book is based on a booklet that outlines research-based strategies that were put together in this document nearly a decade ago. There are also classroom practice suggestions, helping answer the question “what would these research findings/theories look like in my lesson”. This is a key question to answer when developing your own CPD programme - how can the staff take these ideas, theories, or suggestions and convert them into something they can try and implement and measure the impact for themselves? As with our book above on Cognitive Load Theory, the idea that these steps are researched and accepted as good ways to help learning is a plus in my eyes. 

Many strong teachers will be doing a wide range of the steps used above, using good sound pedagogy, rooted in sound scientific research. To them, it may be more a case of signposting this for others, “why is it that Miss Smith finds such success with strategy x? Is it linked to cognitive load theory? Is it because she is checking for understanding (Rosenshine Principle)?”

At this point, once the behaviour is signposted, then others can mentally categorise it, read around the theory or suggestion and try to implement it for themselves.

I am hopeful that by basing our own CPD programme on research-based, scientifically sound ideas on cognitive science and pedagogy, our teachers will be able to plan, resource, teach, support, and challenge our pupils much more effectively over the coming years. I believe that basing our initial CPD provision on these key cognitive science and direct instruction pedagogies will form a strong base for teachers to build upon moving forwards.

Benjamin Barker is the newly appointed Head of School for a Free School in East Manchester, due to open in September 2021. Follow him @BenjaminDBarker and read his blog Unforgotten Failures.