School CPD Tracker – how one primary school has revolutionised their CPD and Performance management to help drive whole school improvement

Eyres Monsell Primary School is an average sized, state maintained primary school in Leicester with 42 members of staff.

When I {Kerry Hill} joined the school, staff CPD and appraisals were carried out on paper and there was no set process for carrying out Performance Management reviews. Whilst we maintained records of staff CPD and appraisals, this was not always easy to find and often resulted in scrabbling around the office just before the reviews took place to find everything. Targets were not necessarily linked to the school’s goals and staff were not fully engaged with the whole process.

We started using CPD tracker 18 months ago and having now completed a full cycle of performance management using CPD Tracker over an academic year we are now able to see the impact this has had on our school;

• Target setting linked to school priorities – the system enables our school leaders to clearly set targets that are linked to the school’s priorities. This means that every member of staff can see how they are helping us to achieve the school-wide objectives.
• Staff ownership of targets and progress – the system enables our staff to upload and link evidence of progress to their own targets at any time so that they can easily demonstrate if they have achieved their targets. As this is such an easy process with School CPD Tracker, staff are continually adding to their evidence portfolio which means they have a comprehensive approach to achieving their targets throughout the year and a full portfolio of evidence to show how they have achieved this by the time we reach the end of year reviews.
• Impact of training – not only does School CPD Tracker enable me to keep abreast of all training within the school, it can show the impact of that training which is an inciteful tool. I can see at a glance how well received any training has been, but more importantly, how the staff have used the knowledge they gained from the training and the impact this has had in the classroom on the outcomes for the children. When viewed alongside the costs and hours spent on training its easy to see where our money has been most productive.
• Time saving – having all the CPD and performance management in one place means I can easily administer everything without searching for different files, documents and handwritten notes. I can clearly see where all my staff are in their performance management cycle and how well we are doing in relation to the school’s priorities as well as their individual progress. By using the system we are saving approximately 5 hours of admin and management time a week, this is valuable “resource” time enabling me to use the additional staff hours elsewhere within the school where they are needed most.

School CPD tracker is so easy to use, all my staff were able to use the system from day one. We now have a robust and timely performance management cycle which has enabled us to align our staff CPD and development with the school’s priorities and improve outcomes for all our children. At the same time, we have reduced our leadership workload which means we can allocate more time and resources to do what we love most, which is teaching our children.