The blueprint to create systems that power effective PD in 16-19 settings
27 January 2026
East Lancashire Learning Group is a further education provider located across three main campuses within East Lancashire (Nelson & Colne College, Accrington & Rossendale College and Lancashire Adult Learning). Offering a broad curriculum, including A Levels, vocational courses, T Levels and apprenticeships, their 16-19 provision serves around 2,500 full-time learners from across Pendle, Burnley, the Ribble Valley and beyond.
Sue Smith
Learning and Development Director, East Lancashire Learning Group
Sally-Anne Schofield
Lead Teaching and Learning Innovator for 16-18 academic provision, East Lancashire Learning Group
Sue Smith is the Teaching, Learning and Development Director at East Lancashire Learning Group (ELLG) and Director for the EEF’s 16-19 Evidence Partnership. She has worked in FE for 25 years in various roles which include teaching and leading various curriculum areas, before moving to quality. Here she has transformed quality improvement with a focus on changing the mindset and ethos through continuous professional development and learning. She drives Teaching, Learning Assessment with passion and knowledge of evidence-based practices.
Sally-Anne Schofield is an English Mastery researcher and the Lead Teaching and Learning Innovator for 16-18 academic provision, driving professional development leading to impactful change in teaching practices at East Lancashire Learning Group (ELLG). She is also Project Manager for the EEF’s 16-19 Evidence Partnership.
Creating a culture of continuous professional development and learning (CPDL) doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time passion and commitment. When done well, CPDL becomes more than a set of activities; it becomes a collective mindset that drives improvement and collaboration, resulting in better outcomes for learners.
Creating the right systems and structures
First and foremost, we had senior leadership buy-in and support. We developed our teaching and learning strategy aligned with our culture and values of creating the extraordinary. We needed to develop a culture and ethos of evidence-based CPDL being a right for all staff, as well as an obligation. This established a shared purpose, reinforcing our values and shared commitment. This was a way of engaging and uniting staff. From Ofsted’s EIF guidance and further reading we started to devise the core components of our CPDL offer.
Key ingredients
When designing our Be Phenomenal CPDL programme we focused on the following key ingredients which were important to the context of our setting.
CPDL needs to:
- be differentiated by teachers’ starting point and not a one-size-fits-all approach
- be relevant to the everyday work of teachers for it to have impact – resources that they can take away and use
- allow teachers to engage in peer learning and collaboration and take ownership. Not to be done to, but to do with
A key to effective CPDL is that it requires: buy-in, follow-up, practice, support and reflection.
We ensured that all staff understood what the effective ingredients of CPDL looked like, what we were implementing and why it mattered.
We identified 12 teaching tools as the key ingredients of great teaching and learning and appointed 12 advanced practitioners that set about reading evidence-based research and attending external training to become experts on their specific tool. They created teaching tips, newsletters, online modules and delivered training to build knowledge and provide prompts and nudges throughout the college year.
Our 12 teaching tools
| Planning for Learning and Assessment | Student Centred Learning and Collaboration |
| Assessment for Learning and Tracking | Target Setting and Feedback |
| Metacognition and Self-RegulationHow children monitor their emotions and thoughts, and adapt their behaviour in different circumstances. | Questioning |
| Embedding Wider Skills: English, maths, digital, employability and health and wellbeing | High Expectations and Stretch and Challenge |
| Behaviour and classroom management | Embracing and promoting a growth mind-set |
| Science of Learning | Personalised learning and focused support |
We provided allocated CPDL time throughout the year for teachers to focus on a specific tool. The first year we focused on practitioner choice. We didn’t want a ‘done to’ model.
Through evaluation and review our next step was to ensure that we had focused CPDL on areas we needed to develop. We found that some teachers chose what they were interested in or good at, not necessarily what they needed to develop and improve. We had overlooked the need to ‘actively steer the process’ as described in the EEF’s School’s Guide to Implementation (EEF, 2025) which was essential for clearly defining our needs and pathway. However, there were wins in embedding the ethos and culture. We had the systems in place where we can identify individual staff’s areas for development, and our next step was that staff focused on one of these.
Questions for reflection
- How do you base your professional development models on evidence informed practice?
Take a look at the EEF’s Effective professional development in 16-19 settings guidance and review what you are doing well and need to evolve.
- How do you ensure there are structures for staff to engage in evidence informed research?
A great place to start is the EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit and the Great Teaching Toolkit from Evidence Based Education.
References
Review and Meta-analysis. EEF. Available at: https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/documents/pages/Teacher-professionaldevlopment.pdf?v=1753200464 p.g. 18
Education Endowment Foundation. (2025). Effective Professional Development in 16-19 Settings. EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/16-19/continuing-professional-development
Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review. Evidence Based Education. P.g 31 Available at: https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/584543-great-teaching-toolkit-evidence-review.pdf