Why do teachers choose us for CPD training?

What’s good about our CPD? Why do we offer a comprehensive programme of events and why should you take the time out of school to attend over the next year?

In this month’s blog I’ll answer these questions, with a little help from teachers who have recently attended our events.

Here in the resources and training services team, we are making the final touches to our CPD programme plan for the 2019/20 academic year.

We constantly review our sessions and receive feedback from all delegates. This tells us what you like about our events and also what we could be doing better.

We design the events schedule by drawing on our depth of internal insight, areas of qualifications we know you need support on (as identified in our examiners’ reports) and, most importantly, feedback from you, the teacher.

How CDP builds confidence of teachers

James Mash, Curriculum Leader of PE, Bradford Forster Academy, describes his experience after attending a Cambridge Nationals Sports Studies training event in November 2018.

“I feel very confident on both ensuring marking/moderating accurately and also using this to teach students effectively.”

After attending a GCSE Art and Design training event in November 2018 Michelle O'Halloran, Head of Art, City of Birmingham School, tells us:

“I feel much more confident when I mark both components for Art and Design.”

Stephanie Bingham, Academic Lead KS4 at Wednesfield High Academy, who also attended a GCSE Art and Design training event in January said:

“Both trainers were clearly knowledgeable and really professional.”

And finally H. Svenson-Taylor, Teacher of Religious Studies, St George's School, Weybridge, an attendee at the A Level Religious Studies event in 2018:

“Clearly very experienced course leaders providing a good opportunity for discussions and questions.”

By conveying our knowledge of the qualification, specification and marking criteria, our CPD events help to build your confidence to deliver our assessments to your students.

All of our events are designed and delivered by our examiners and in-house subject experts and cover the most important topics and themes in a depth that allows you to be confident about them when back in the classroom.

And understanding

Teacher’s reaction, after attending a recent A Level D&T training event:

“The best aspect of this event was being able to get to grips with the marking criteria and understanding the language of it.”

We know from our conversations with teachers that your assessment needs are constantly evolving and that understanding the specification is crucial

Our CPD sessions are an efficient and effective way to get to grips with the mark schemes and its nuances, as well as the things that matter most to your students.

You’ll also be pleased to hear there is always plenty of time set aside for you to talk through specific issues that you might be experiencing. Giving you a deeper understanding and awareness of the way our qualifications are assessed and how that relates to marks schemes is a key objective at all of our sessions.

Supporting colleagues

“I went away with valuable information to feedback to school.”

Ian Battarbee, Head of PE, West Hill School, after attending a GCSE PE training event in November

Our sessions are designed and delivered by subject experts, and in such a way that you’ll leave as experts too. After each of our training events, you will have valuable insights, resources and ideas to feed back to your colleagues.

What type of events are available?

Every year we host a variety of CPD training events across a variety of formats.

These include ‘Choosing OCR’ events, designed to help you decide if our organisation is the right exam board for you and your centre.

We also offer ‘First Teaching’, to prepare you for delivering our qualifications once you’ve made your choice and ‘Next Steps and Understanding the Assessment’, which delve deeper into our qualifications and assessments.

We offer these in face-to-face and online sessions from one hour up to one day in length.

Next year we’ll also be trialing some new types of events, both in terms of format and content. Watch this space.

Finally, is there something else you’d like us to be doing in terms of training and online support provision? If so, please let us know in the comments below or by giving us your feedback.

Stay connected...

Any questions? Then submit your comments below. You can also sign up to receive email updates about our subjects, resources and support or follow us on Twitter @OCRexams you can also email me at Resources.Feedback@ocr.org.uk.

About the author

Tom Stottor  

Tom Stottor is the commissioning editor for support resources and services at OCR. He’s responsible for making sure that the type of resources we make and the training services we offer best suit teachers’ needs. A large part of his job (and the one he enjoys the most) is speaking to teachers and he’s always keen to do so more. Send him an e-mail if you’d like to chat.