Teacher Professional Development in Changing Circumstances: The Impact of COVID-19 on Schools’ Approaches to Professional Development

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused fundamental shifts in schools’ and teachers’ practices. At the start of the pandemic, forty schools in England were in their second year of participation in a pilot initiative intended to understand what changes could be put in place by schools in order to implement an entitlement for teachers to high-quality, sustained professional development. This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on the participating schools’ approaches to professional development. Drawing on findings from the independent evaluation and school leaders’ experiences of the initiative, it describes how, before the pandemic, school leaders constructed professional development plans in alignment with school improvement objectives and address individual teachers’ professional learning needs. During the pandemic, after an initial de-prioritisation of professional development, plans were adapted to new professional development ecologies in schools. Professional learning activities moved to online, hybrid and blended environments and new activities were added in response to emerging teacher professional learning needs. This study demonstrates how schools’ plans for teacher professional development can, even in the most extreme conditions, be reshaped and adapted to changing circumstances and adds to the growing body of knowledge of online and hybrid professional development.