How can Kapow Primary’s integrated CPD support primary school subject leaders and teachers?

One of the aims of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is to improve subject knowledge, but it can be difficult to deliver beneficial and relevant training for everyone. 

Integrated CPD is a unique feature of Kapow Primary’s teaching and learning resources that allows you to upskill not just yourself, but also your colleagues when they teach foundation subjects that you lead.

The Ofsted Inspection Framework requires that:

“Teachers have good knowledge of the subject(s) and courses they teach. Leaders provide effective support, including for those teaching outside their main areas of expertise.”

With primary teachers expected to teach up to 13 subjects, unless you are superhuman, it’s normal to be lacking in confidence and knowledge in some areas. 

All too often, delivery of CPD becomes a box-ticking exercise. This is unfortunate, because good quality CPD provides many benefits for primary teachers such as:

• Learning something new
• Increasing confidence
• Identifying gaps in knowledge
• Refreshing knowledge
• Rekindling enthusiasm for topics and subjects.

The most effective primary school CPD training is:

Continuous

“Evidence suggests that a one-day course as a stand-alone activity is unlikely to have a lasting impact on pupil outcomes. Professional development programmes should be sustained over time.”
Department for Education – Standard for teachers’ professional development

Subject-specific

“Teachers say that they find subject-specific CPD more beneficial to their teaching than generic pedagogical CPD – and evidence suggests that they are right.”

Wellcome Trust 

Immediately applicable to the classroom

“The best CPD is interspersed with episodes of practice. The easier professional development plans can be integrated into individual teachers’ classroom contexts and the specific areas of their day-to-day practice they want to improve upon, the more lasting the impact.”

The UCL Institute for Education 

Kapow Primary’s CPD has been created specifically to support teachers in primary schools with their confidence and subject knowledge as they move through their teaching and learning sequences.

Our unique teacher videos support this! Here is an example from a Year 3 Art and design lesson, where the presenter models how to decorate an Egyptian scroll. It clearly demonstrates the process involved and the materials needed. This creative lesson can be easily adapted and followed by both adults and primary school children.

This is how Kapow Primary integrates CPD into lessons:

• Provides bespoke CPD teacher videos for most lessons
• Is bite-sized and immediately applicable
• Models key skills for practical subjects
• Develops subject knowledge before teaching a lesson.

In addition, we also support CPD via:

• Teacher subject knowledge audits
• Regular webinars
• Subject leader support.

The best CPD should be relevant to what you’re teaching now. It’s no use listening to tips for teaching about the Ancient Greeks in Year 5 when you’re teaching the history of the monarchy in Year 2. 

We’ve added a video trailer from our lower key stage 2 History unit about the Roman Empire. It explains how to teach an interactive lesson about Roman army formations:

It is designed to develop your knowledge of the Roman army and to help you teach a highly engaging and memorable lesson.

At Kapow Primary, we endeavour to support teachers by making foundation subject CPD both manageable and meaningful. Integrated CPD can be immediately implemented in a classroom without increasing teachers’ workload. According to a review published by Ofsted, teachers are keen to pursue CPD, but it is not as effective as it could be:

“Teachers are not getting the high-quality training they need and struggle to find time for professional development due to their mounting workloads.”

Teacher’s professional development remains a work in progress

Kapow Primary offers a new way of upskilling primary teachers and giving them confidence.

Many teachers benefit from our subject-specific Facebook groups for teaching inspiration and ideas. These online communities provide a safe space to ask questions and get answers from people who understand. 

The Kapow Primary Community Facebook Group welcomes both members and prospective members who are interested in subscribing to Kapow Primary. For teachers who have already subscribed, there is the Kapow Primary Members Club Facebook group.

What is the impact of CPD?

According to the findings of the first wave of the Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey, (published in April 2023) by the Department for Education (DfE):

“Teachers and leaders had mixed views on the impact that the CPD they had undertaken had on their ability to perform their role, with 30% reporting it had a ‘high’ impact, 53% ‘medium’ impact and 16% ‘little’ or ‘no’ impact.”

Clearly, there is a need for CPD to be more impactful. Kapow Primary’s integrated approach to CPD means their learning can be applied immediately to their teaching. Our bite-sized videos explain lesson content clearly and can be watched over and over again for increased clarity. 

During user research in 2021, our integrated CPD was cited as being particularly useful and valuable in helping teachers to model skills. Two common reasons given for taking out a Kapow Primary subscription were to provide support for less confident members of staff and for our embedded CPD video presentations.

Kapow Primary’s resources are also useful outside the classroom; our videos provide effective and professional presentations for teachers to use during staff meetings and INSET day training.

Removing barriers to CPD

Our integrated CPD removes the following barriers to accessing CPD as cited by the DfE:

• Lack of time due to workload or competing priorities
• The cost of CPD 
• Lack of cover.

Kapow Primary’s bite-sized teacher presentation videos are designed to form part of lesson planning time, so as not to add to the workload or require additional time, cost or cover. 

The same DfE report found:

“Subject or phase-specific knowledge or pedagogy was the most commonly cited topic that teachers would like further CPD on in the next 12 months.”

Our subject-specific CPD is presented lesson by lesson, specifically for each topic, making it a personalised learning experience that is completely relevant to what you are teaching, as you are teaching it.

Interestingly, the DfE found that primary teachers are the least confident teaching subjects are Languages, Music and Computing. Our teacher-led CPD videos are created by subject specialists and focus closely on increasing subject knowledge. They can also be used in class as part of lessons. This is particularly helpful for a teacher lacking confidence in delivering learning in subjects such as French or Music.

In our videos, teachers model the skills used in subjects, providing examples that can be replicated in the classroom. We provide background information about topics and ideas about how to amend the lesson plans.

In essence, CPD is about teachers learning to teach better. CPD that is integrated and subject-specific improves teacher confidence and subject knowledge and, in turn, makes for a better learning experience for children. 

At Kapow Primary, we are continually reviewing and updating our resources. We welcome any suggestions of other ways we can support you with CPD.