In recent analysis, SchoolDash and the Teacher Development Trust found that schools’ spending on staff professional development (CPD) fell more than 40 per cent between 2018 and 2021. But this fall also masks the true amount spent on developing staff in schools.
Most school leaders have felt significant financial pressure, especially in the past year with huge additional costs, particularly around staffing and energy. In the same period expenditure on staffing grew while other budgets such as school maintenance, curriculum resources and administrative supplies fell, so some of this could well be general financial pressures.
But with teachers and support staff becoming increasingly hard to recruit and the volume of trainees falling alarmingly short, a school’s professional development offer is one of the few effective levers leaders have left to attract staff, retain them and build capacity and skill in their teams.
