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Expectations of leaders

Standard 6: Continuing professional development

Continuing professional development (CPD)

As strategic lead, you are responsible for developing the professionals in your organisation. 

You should ensure your organisation prioritises Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the development of practice knowledge. You should build a culture that nurtures professional curiosity. It should value reflection and encourage learning at work.  

Understand the breadth of learning and development needs. See how knowledge can align with your organisation's goals. You should set up frameworks and procedures to enable CPD. They should ensure enough resources are allocated. See Employer standard 7: Professional registration for further guidance and resources.  

Set up systems for planning, reflecting on, and documenting learning. Ensure that practitioners have structured processes for organising their learning needs. You should reflect on these processes and document them well. 

Implement mechanisms and resources to support practitioners taking part in CPD. Also, make CPD routine, impactful and essential to improving professional practice. You should ensure that opportunities exist for formal, informal and self-directed learning. If you are fair and open, you will help everyone improve. 

Ensure all practitioners are supported to engage and participate in CPD. Provide learning opportunities in many formats and check that the formats benefit new practitioners. CPD should include protected time for development.

All practitioners should have managed workloads, supervision, and personal development plans. Establish regular performance review systems that identify goals. Plan and record achievement using mechanisms to identify knowledge gaps.   

You should ensure that continuous learning and improvement are prioritised at all levels.

You should:  

  • ensure practitioners can access knowledge resources 
  • provide opportunities for practitioners to learn together and share effective practice 
  • encourage practitioners to apply knowledge and evidence to strategic thinking and decision-making 
  • ensure managers get development opportunities to support practitioners’ continuous personal learning journeys  

Ensure that supervision offers practitioners opportunities to reflect on practice. This will help them find areas to improve. It will also help them make plans to grow. 

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The resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 30 October 2024