Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Education

Find out how we can support your professional development with CPD opportunities within the UK and internationally.

Supporting your progress

Our Education department offers CPD training in areas including curriculum design, professional knowledge, educational psychology and disability and inclusion. 

We enjoy long-standing relationships with local schools, allowing our trainees to get excellent support from schools offering professional placements.

Through a combination of lectures, workshops, hands-on learning and site and cultural visits, you can benefit from stimulating developmental opportunities to deepen your understanding of educational innovations. You’ll consider how you can strengthen the quality of your teaching through reflection and research.

You’ll be challenged and supported to develop your classroom practice, in ways that can be shared with others in school and in partnership contexts.

Explore all our CPD opportunities:

• International CPD

  We offer bespoke professional development to colleagues across the world through a range of in-person and blended training courses.

  Our courses are inspired by our commitment to inclusivity and collaboration. The courses are designed to unlock shared expertise amongst participants, provoke new ideas and build upon models of co-enquiry and action learning.

  We have experience delivering courses these across country contexts including Beijing, Cyprus, South Africa, Nigeria, Cambodia, Japan, Ghana and Kazakhstan and with universities, schools and professional organisations.

  Course structure 

  The international CPD courses normally take place over three days, including a suite of 90-minute interactive workshops. Each course has a collective and informal assessment, drawing together what has been learned. You’ll receive access to course materials and a certificate of completion.

  Course content

  We cover a range of topics in relation to the themes of ‘Reflecting, Re-Engaging and Re-Imagining Transformative Education Pedagogy, Research and Practice’. These include:

  Learning, teaching and pedagogy

  • Reflections on professional identity and knowledge
  • Inclusive and transformative pedagogies
  • Techniques for active and collaborative learning and knowledge production
  • Learning with digital technologies.

  Researcher development

  • Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods
  • Ethical principles and practice in education research
  • Designing research projects and bidding for funding
  • Research communication and writing.

  Principles of effective leadership

  • Coaching and mentoring
  • Equality, diversity and inclusion.

  Course cost

  Course cost is calculated based on format, duration, venue and participant numbers. We also charge a context appropriate fee. Contact us to discuss this further – eswenquiries@sussex.ac.uk.

• CPD for Partnership Teachers

  In partnership with local providers, we offer a range of modules to provide teachers with the chance to gain an Education Postgraduate Diploma or an Education MA. This flexible three-year route gives newly qualified teachers the opportunity to accredit their Early Career Framework. 

  Most newly qualified teachers graduate from their teacher training course with 60 Masters-level credits. Through this Education CPD you can transfer these credits on to the next stage of your professional development.

  With these CPD modules you can gain a further 30 credits each during your first and second year of teaching to gain an Education Postgraduate Diploma. You can instead continue into your third year with a dissertation (60 credits) for a total of 180 credits and graduate with a Masters degree.

  Our professional development modules enhance and complement the training offered as part of the Early Career Framework (ECF). Modules are designed to support your professional development, enrich your practice and enable to you to discover aspects of education which are relevant and interesting to you.

  Modules include:

  Year 1: Unpacking Professional Knowledge (30 credits)

  You’ll revisit the importance of reflection on and in action, and the need to consider professional knowledge critically. You’ll also consider the evidence base of policy and practice, and ways to better understand what is happening in your teaching. Additionally you’ll explore one theme in depth from your ECF training, and look at how it is shaped by policy, scholarship and the practice of others.

  Year 2: Exploring Professional Knowledge (30 credits)

  This allows for specialisation, and the chance to discover and develop new knowledge through the design, completion and communication of a school-based research project. You will select a theme from your ECF training and establish your own research agenda. Sessions focus on research design, selecting appropriate research tools, analysing data and drawing conclusions and recommendations.

  On completion of this module you can leave the course with an Education Postgraduate Diploma.

  Year 3: Researching Professional Knowledge - Dissertation (60 credits)

  To graduate with a Masters degree you’ll continue your studies and pursue an area of policy, practice or scholarship which resonates with your emerging interests. You will work with a supervisor to establish research questions, explore specialist literature, agree a methodology and discuss the implications of findings from different data sets.

  On completion of this module, you’ll graduate with an Education MA.

  Resources

  During your studies you’ll be registered as a part-time student at Sussex and can:

  • access online resources through a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment
  • borrow from the Library
  • participate in academic or social events (on campus or virtually). 

Get in touch with us to find out more about our CPDs: eswenquiries@sussex.ac.uk

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