People feel differently about a meeting depending on whether they are attending because they are obliged to or because they have chosen to. Compulsion colours their view of the event. This was the thinking of St Thomas a Becket School, a secondary school in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. They wanted staff to see continuing professional development (CPD) events as intrinsically valuable, so they decided to make attendance voluntary.
The CPD coordinator announced there would be a series of hour-long voluntary meetings after school. They would cover diverse areas and anyone was welcome to lead a meeting. Various staff members volunteered, and the school discovered several staff members were very good at leading CPD sessions. A teacher led an excellent meeting on lesson starters, and a member of the administrative team led another on the use of data.
The meetings were conducted in an informal workshop style rather than as a formal staff meeting. Some were better attended than others but overall they were well attended by willing audiences who found them useful. The school now wants to give its newly discovered event leaders more opportunities to provide staff development sessions. It is also is going to establish similar voluntary events for teaching assistants.
