[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 9 | April 6, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Alex says, ”
All the evidence indicates that teachers develop intensively in their first couple of years of teaching and that they then plateau in their development, regardless of the intricate plans for continuous professional development (CPD) that schools construct.
This was my personal experience. You conquer the struggles of simply managing your class and then you simply get on. You have subject content to learn; exams to grapple with; students to chase up, reports to write, plans to hastily cobble together and much more. There are so many pressures, and so little time, that genuine self-improvement is a struggle. In these conditions CPD can’t hope to make much difference.
With the Sword of Damocles that is OFSTED always looming, and changing diktats being recycled from Whitehall just have you have understood the last one, you may be slumping with pessimism for the future of our great profession. Gladly, I do think there is cause for optimism and you can sense it when people come together to discuss CPD and shares their successes and seek out improvements”.