ABSTRACT

Your professional development as a teacher should be viewed as a lifelong learning process. This process begins while you are a student teacher, extends into your first/ induction year of teaching as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) and continues throughout your teaching career. This lifelong process of learning, commonly known as continuing professional development (CPD), is defined by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE, 2001: 3) as ‘any activity that increases the skills, knowledge or understanding of teachers, and their effectiveness in schools’. Thus, ongoing CPD throughout your initial teacher education (ITE) course is integral to effective teaching and learning. However, Day (1999) argues that CPD is more than the development of teachers’ subject knowledge and teaching skills. He contends that it should embrace the personal, moral and political dimensions of teaching as a professional activity. Likewise, Hargreaves (2001: 493) says CPD is ‘about enriching the quality of the lives of teachers themselves and their intellectual and moral excellences’.