Adam Robbins Education

This blog is a fleshed out version of my thread on Bluesky. 

When the most recent Teacher Tapp survey was released, I was not surprised by the result. It looked at opinions on September INSET days. 

A lot of work goes into INSET days – so it's important to know: did teachers find their INSET day useful? 🤔

Senior leaders (including headteachers) were the most likely to say it was ‘very useful’ (38%). pic.twitter.com/hUPPEpeURS

— Teacher Tapp (@TeacherTapp) September 20, 2024

What seems to spark people’s conversation was two fold.

1. That leaders found them more useful than teachers
2. That teachers really didn’t find them very useful 

I think these results make a lot of sense when you look at the purpose given to September INSET in particular. Often it is very procedural with time devoted to outcomes, safeguarding and big picture vision stuff. 

All those things need to happen. The question is how they happen and how long they need to be. Given this list it’s no surprise that leaders feel the day is more beneficial. At least three leaders will have achieved things they worked really hard on. 

There are other things that also happen on inset days. For example, there is often some teaching and learning or behaviour management training. These are a great idea as long as they are well chosen. If you want to run a session on a common routine for gaining attention and how the school behaviour system should be used the that’s great. It gets you the consistency you need from day one and prevents teachers being too strict or lax. However if you do a session on something more conceptual like the curriculum or assessment, even if that session is brilliant, it might fall on deaf ears as teachers are focused on the more here and now issue. 

It always comes back to the old saying “is the juice worth the squeeze?”

For a September first INSET day I think the following rules of thumb are probably good:

1. All non-training presentations should be 50% of the time you feel they should be. 
2. All training should be things relevant to all and needed on the first day students arrive. Everything thing else can wait. 

How to make training sessions better. 

Even if we have followed these two rules we are still not certain of a successful day. Our next challenge is to ensure the sessions are valuable. 

To make it easy let’s split it into two types of sessions. 

1. Information updates. Eg safeguarding 
2. Professional development (PD) Eg training on how to use signal, pause, insist for class silence and how the behaviour system is used to support this. 

While lots of work has been done recently on improving the quality of CPD from important people like the EEF and less important people like blogs by myself, still so much work is needed. Looking at the data from Teacher Tapp it seems safe to assume that the mechanisms are not either fully understood or utilised. Let’s take each in turn. 

Information updates.

The main goal of these is to impart information in an efficient way. As such they often focus on dense slides to ensure that none of the information is missed in the presentation. This is an understandable decision given the importance of the information being delivered. However it often leads to the ‘death by reading PowerPoint’ and the removal of the souls of the audience. It might be preferable to keep most of the information on a script or notes and just deliver the key statistics and definitions via the text on the slides. A second key purpose of this kind of session is to make sure the audience know this information is relevant to them and important. This could be achieved by rhetoric and emphasis, however it might be better to create a small task that illustrates the need for the information. A simple quiz on the frequency of certain safeguarding issues and their numbers last year might spark discussion and make people aware of the pertinence. If the session was on changes to duties and break time sanctions the quiz could be a series of scenarios and options for the teachers actions. In both cases we are still imparting the same information but in a more varied format to provide a break in the monotony and refresh the audience’s attention. 

Professional development inset.

In our second type of session we are looking at the whole cohort PD during inset. This has a number of barriers to overcome, the most important being the huge variation in experience, expertise and, often, subject specialism. The most effective way to pitch to as broad a range as possible is to begin the session by framing it under a persistent problem. Kennedy (2015) identified a series of persistent problems that all teachers face to a certain degree. These are a good starting point. You should feel free to be flexible though and tailor them to practical examples. For example, if you wanted to introduce a routine for checking for understanding using mini whiteboards you could frame it as a problem like ‘Isn’t it frustrating when you explain a concept and the students you question can give you the right answers but when you set the class to task not all students are not able to complete it and you have to run around troubleshooting issues?’ By framing this way it hopefully is an experience that most have had. If you cannot write a problem that you feel most people will have experienced then it is highly likely you have not identified a problem that needs whole school CPD. CPD must be responsive and must avoid becoming a solution in search of a problem to solve. 

If you have identified the right problem then the session should lean heavily on the same strategies that work well in teaching a class. Firstly we should check and activate prior knowledge. This can be through a quiz or discussion around our persistent problem. In our example we could ask the teachers what current strategies they use and how well they feel they work. 

Then we will deliver the new information in manageable chunks. Again we must avoid death by Powerpoint. Often a diagram of a process is better than a written description. Crucially we must exemplify the approach and also some key non-examples during this explanation to ensure all teachers are aware of the applicability and validity conditions. 

Just like in a lesson we need to check for understanding after the explanation. This could be a quiz that teachers discuss their answers to in pairs, or you could use any other effective technique like whiteboards. It is not patronising to model the techniques you are trying to explain within your training session. If anything it improves the teachers understanding of the students experience.

All things need practice. This could be what is often called deliberate practice. This might be role play-esque activities, or it could be discussion around scenarios and the teachers next steps. It is key to establish the right tone and culture around these parts, be clear of the reason the practice is needed and acknowledge the potential negative emotions teachers might have towards them. By labelling the emotions people may feel we validate them as being reasonable and not personality flaws. We can then ask them to put them to one side and embrace the activity with an open mind. 

After practice there comes the key step for more experienced teachers in the room. Discussion on the strengths and potential issues with the new approach. This discussion is key as it helps those with more expertise to bring concerns they have to the surface and also suggest tweaks and adjustments. It also allows for different subjects to consider how things might work in their context. These can be taken on board by you in the public space and demonstrate the openness to feedback that is so important when building a professional development culture. 

What about department time and planning time.

These are also crucial parts of a good inset day. If you are giving departments planning time then it is vital that the leaders are made aware of the focus and content of the other sessions during the day well in advance. To plan effective subject/department training takes time and so if you want it to build on whole school sessions they need all the information and time you can give them.

Individual planning time is also important, especially in the September inset. If you are fortunate to have two days to start the year then it is optimal to give teachers the afternoon of the second day at least. We must be careful with offering too much time though as diminishing returns will be in place. As time is so precious this planning time can be structured by providing a list of things that should be in place by the end of the day to allow for a smooth start to the first day the students arrive.

Final thought.

While this blog is specifically about September INSET most of these concepts should help in any INSET days. At our school we have worked really hard to try and find the right balance between the different competing priorities and staff voice suggests we are making progress on ensuring all INSET is effective. Hopefully you found this useful, as always feedback is a gift so if you do things differently please let me know through one of the social media apps.