Journal of In-Service Education

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Staff Development in Schools, the implications for

teacher education/in‐service education

J.F. Isaac

To cite this article: J.F. Isaac (1975) Staff Development in Schools, the implications for
teacher education/in‐service education, Journal of In-Service Education, 1:3, 21-26, DOI:
10.1080/0305763750010305

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Published online: 12 Sep 2006.

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Staff Development in Schools,
the implications for teacher education/in-service education
J.F. Isaac Sunderland Polytechnic
Few would argue against the vfew that the most
21 vital resource that any school has is the staff
and thus attention therefore needs to be given
to staff development. The teachers play the key
role in the functioning of a school and it
follows that any effort towards improving their
contribution is of great importance. High
priority must be given to staff development
generally but especially in times when econo-
mic factors restrict any improvements in build-
ings and facilities. The more difficult the
situation the more vital is the need for teachers
of high calibre working to high standards.
The accelerating rate of change within
education is forcing schools to accept the need
for improved efforts in staff training and
development. Occasionally this may be a reac-
tion to a crisis but one aspect of any well
managed enterprise is the manner in which it
plans, develops and adapts to avoid the crisis
situation which often leads to ill judged at-
tempts at short term solutions. Clearly staff
development should be part of a planned
programme which is part of a healthy school
organisation.
So far there have been few areas of the
education field which have seriously studied
staff development in the manner which has
become common in industry and in other
public services such as the hospital service,
electricity supply industry and the Post Office.
In-service training for teachers has expanded a
great deal recently and Area Training Organisa-
tions have set up committees to coordinate and
run programmes designed to help teachers.
Such courses are attended largely on an indivi-
dual-basis and their effectiveness is not very
clearly evaluated. Indeed Peter Brown (1973)
has argued that many teachers are not prepared
to work seriously on such courses.
"1 diagnose in a fair proportion of mem-
bers of in-service courses a low motivation to
work and learn, and a strong inclination to
bask". Full staff development involves elements
of training that may be carried out effectively
by courses but is given another connotation in
some management literature where it is some-
times used to denote managerial development
rather than the extension of actual work skills.
In the case of full staff development in schools
it would seem appropriate to include all
planned attempts to add to the relevant abilities
of the staff whether concerned with teaching
skills or other work of the school. In the
secondary field there is abundant evidence that
the increasing size and complexity of the
organization produces the need for improved
managerial performance and the change in
curriculum and approaches cause demands for
new teaching skills. Primary and middle schools
also face times of change and development both
in detail and in broad innovations, such as open
plan schools.
However, staff development has a quality
that makes it even more vital that any im-
mediate problem solving ability that may be
involved. The turnover of teachers and loss to
the profession, coupled with low morale is
indicative that the education system is failing to
motivate the professionals successfully. The
"development" is the key factor and means
that we are considering more than "training".
McGregor (19G0) put forward his view that
what he called Theory Y was certainly appli-
cable to the task of managing managers and
professional people. Theory Y is based on the
view that the average individual will naturally
expend mental effort on work and will seek out
responsibility and opportunities to use imagina-
tion and be creative. He suggest that in modern
society the individual is only partly utilizing his
potential. This approach relates to the work of
Herzberg (1966) in which he has suggested that
job satisfaction is strongly determined by five
factors — achivement, recognition, work itself,
responsibility and advancement. Factors such as
pay he terms 'hygiene factors', those which you
need at a certain level in order to get some
commitment but which have no long term
influence in motivating. If you pay a man more
he works harder for a time but soon wants to
be paid more still. It is significant that
McGregor's book is titled, "The Human Side of
the Enterprise", and that Herzberg talks of the
"quality of work life". While these views have
been criticised in the context of general indus-
trial organizations they do seem very relevant
to our position in education and are the basis
up on which I would build a case for a planned
and extensive staff development programme
including but transending in-service training
courses.
The hospital service has been using a
system of appraisal interviews with teachers of
nursing for some time and such a system of in-
dividual interviews with all members of the
staff would form a basis for staff development.
At such interviews the individual discusses his
needs for development with a superior and it is
a result of such consultation that the develop-
ment of the teacher can be planned.
All schools have changing needs and Head
Teachers are faced with two main methods of
catering for such change, they may "buy-in" or
develop staff. Buying-in expertise by recruiting
from outside, may be forced in a completely
new school or in violent and radical changes. It
seems cheaper to take in teachers trained
somewhere else but you have to take the risk of
making expensive mistakes. Staff development
from within the the school is relatively ex-
pensive of time and is open to the risk of
"development by favouritism" which may
damage the morale of the school as a whole.
The best system is likely to be a mixture of the
two with a programme that clearly and openly
aims to help all members of staff to contribute
more fully to the school.
The key goal of such a programme is to
increase the satisfaction of the individual in the
school in contributing to the system. This will
certainly involve development professionally in
a general way increasing the background and
experience of each teacher, but will also include
improvement in the classroom performance
that might arise from certain training. Staff
development has a wider goal of improving
schools themselves as a result of a higher level
of motivation and the release of the potential
contribution of the staff. It may be important
to accept that there are questions of sequence
involved and cycles in the life of the school can
mean that the effort put into development will
have to relate to other factors. Certain types of
growth will have to take place before some
changes rather than during them. Programmes 22
need to be realistic rather than naive and the
possible clash between the desires of the indivi-
dual and needs of the school may have to be
reconciled. In particular the issue of developing
staff for someone elses school has to be faced.
The possibility of anyone "buying-in" expertise
depends upon suitable skilled teachers being
available and merely shifts development prob-
lems from one place to another. Thus for the
whole profession there seems no way to avoid
the responsibility for staff development in
every school and it would seem to be of such
prime importance that the Head Teacher should
be directly involved, although this would not
preclude delegating aspects of the programme.
Clearly the question of development relates to
recruitment and in this way, if in no other, the
chief executive is personally involved. The
changing of allocation of points, without any
actual increase in numbers on the staff, some-
times highlights the fact that a school may
promote staff on criteria other than merit.
Unlike some parts of the outside world it is
easier to promote than to fire within the
education field. It may be on these occasions
that the need for a staff development pro-
gramme becomes very obvious. Generally
teachers look outside the school for in-service
training and there is often little co-ordination
or direction as a matter of policy. Individual
teachers apply for courses that may be of only
peripheral use to the school, while other weak-
nesses remain.
Staff development is a planned programme
that coordinates the need of the individual with
the function of the school. Possibly .we some-
times forget that any effective improvement has
to be a learning process. In such a situation the
teacher must be open to his or her need to
develop and this may involve a process of
making teachers aware of themselves and their
place in the organisation. This is inevitable in
the upheaval of the formation of a new school
but the developing school has the problem
which may not be obvious.
 ' T o engaged in such a learning process,
23 whether inside the school or in partnership
with the supporting agencies requires con-
siderable modification of attitudes by all
of the participants, a recognition of the
need to learn, a willingness to learn to-
gether. Light (1973).
As Eraut (1972) indicates in his account of a
consultancy workshop approach, the starting
point is for there to be an awareness of the
problem and this may well be missing. One way
of improving problem awareness is the use of
case studies in which teachers from different
schools participate and through which they are
able to be critical of people in the case without
feeling that they are unprofessional or vulner-
able. Before any real attempt can be made to
promote the full development of staff there has
to be a stage at which problems and areas
needing development are recognised. Pro-
grammes that do not relate to the needs of the
teachers are unlikely to be successful and work
that does not contribute towards solving a
problem in the school is wasteful of resources
that are in short supply. With needs sometimes
unrecognised by both teachers and schools
there is a place for action on the part of the
person in charge that is guidance rather than
the passive acceptance of requests to attend
courses or to gain particular experience.
The term staff development includes as-
pects of the continuing nurturing of individual
teachers, teams of teachers and the whole
school organisation which is much wider than
the usual in-service training. Such training is
valuable and may be the best way to inject
ideas related to specific curriculum materials
through trainers who have some expertise that
is in short supply. This shortage is itself a
problem for this approach, as dissemination
problems of projects have revealed. Progress is
being made towards helping teachers to run
courses themselves but in many cases an area
needs an injection of experience and expertise
that may not be available in the region. This
type of training taken in centres outside the
school, often attended by only one member of
the staff, has limited effectiveness. Even if Peter
Brown's criticism that many teachers do not
arrive at courses with the intention of working
is ignored, there is the difficulty that the lone
teacher returning from a course finds in getting
anyone to listen to his new enthusiasm. The
school is quite a complex organisation and Katz
and Kahn (1964) have clearly made the case
that you cannot change an organisation by
changing an individual with the possible excep-
tion of the Head Teacher. Glatter (1973) also
highlights the difficulties of bringing about
change by sending people on courses, especially
if they do not have the support of their Head
on return to the school.
Much staff development has nothing to do
with courses but is a question of nurturing staff
through the experience that they are allowed to
acquire in their work within the school. If a
system of individual interviews is linked in with
the development of teachers they are more
likely to react well to extra responsibility which
can then be related to longer term prospects.
Such development, when concerned with
managerial skills, is dependent upon the chief
executive relinquishing tasks to allow for ex-
perience to develop in others. The whole
question of participation of teachers in the
running of the school is bound up with staff
development.
Another essential feature in any plans for
development must be consideration of succes-
sion and the programme needs to cater for
possible changes with a plan involving the
development of junior staff to take over more
senior roles. Here the school is concerned with
the potential of teachers as managers and
development of individuals must include con-
sideration of limitations as well as abilities.
Some industries have developed systems
for recognising the qualities that indicate the
ability of the individual to meet the demands of
these roles and teachers may feel that they are
not given sufficient opportunity to demonstrate
their capacity to solve problems and take
decisions.
Most development of individuals actually
takes place as they work and this has the other
 unfortunate consequence that the most effec-
tive experience is probably acquired in good
schools, where teachers learn from each other
and grow with the opportunities that such a
school creates. It is the schools with difficulties
which must allocate most energy to survival and
because of this the development of staff that is
needed cannot be carried out. In these situa-
tions teachers will leave to gain opportunity in
another school or may, as Becker (1952) has
shown, adjust to a limited professional role
which .then inhibits any desire for personal
fulfillment of potential. As defined, staff
development is to contribute to the extension
of the quality of professional life of the teacher
and also to improve the functioning of the
school. If out of school in-service courses have
limited effectiveness and teachers learn best
when the situation relates directly to their
needs, a programme should be based on the
school or a group of schools. Both Hoyle
(1973) and Brown (1973) have emphasized the
same point, that in-service work is best dealt
with from a school base. Here then is one of the
key problems of staff development. In good
schools staff development goes on to some
extent already but how can a programme be
effective where survival is the paramount de-
mand? Hoyle (1969) considers various ap-
proaches such as the introduction of "change-
agents", people introduced into the school to
bring about change, and consultants, who come
to help from outside the organisation. But it
seems impossible to solve the problem of the
depressed school without putting in more re-
sources. Some problems may be solved without
putting in more resources. Some problems may
be solved with better leadership but this pro-
bably means new staff or re-vitalising the
present staff which needs time for meetings and
possibly weekend conferences. Staff develop-
ment in these circumstances depends a great
deal upon the Head Teacher and this is in-
dicated in the comments about the Head in
Halpin's profiles of schools, Halpin (1966).
Clearly however in the education system in
which we function many resources needed for a
development programme are controlled from
outside the school and it is significant. that
Halpin (1967) reports the lack of success in 24
finding city centre schools that were other than
of the 'closed' type which had a poor climate
for any innovation or development. The circle
has to be broken somewhere and it seems that
the only likely solution is the injection of
resources from outside as with the E.P.A.
schools and the use of programmes based firmly
on the needs of the actual school using assis-
tance, such as consultants, from elsewhere. The
organisation has to change rather than the
individual and Thomason (1970) has suggested
a programme of what he has called, 'organisa-
tional training', detailing the role of the Head
Teacher and the needs that have to be catered
for if the school organisation is to develop.
While the whole idea of a staff develop-
ment programme tends to become linked to the
issue of curriculum development in schools the
question should be rather more carefully
examined than it tends to be. Much of the
literature comes from the background of curri-
culum projects of one kind and another and
frequently it seems to be assumed that the
problem is to get projects taken up in schools.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence that this is
difficult but it seems important in this context
to start further back in the process. The
teachers with which we are dealing are profes-
sionals and that makes a very significant factor
in any programme for their development. Their
professional status in secondary schools rests
not on their teaching status so much as their
subject status and it is only recently that we
have seen important roles being held by
pastoral based teachers as well as subject
teachers. This means that at first they will base
their relationship to the school on this
academic professional ground and that their
priority goals are likely to be linked with
subjects rather than the school. Coleman
(1972) has indicated what problems of goal
displacement we are faced with in teachers as
they reject school goals for those that they see
as professionally more relevant. To counter this
he suggests that teachers have to be frequently
faced again with the goals of the organisation
 and Miles (1965) has made 'goal focus' one of
25 the items in his description of a healthy
organisation. Here then is one basic item in any
staff development programme — the clear de-
finition of goals. Not precise definition in
behavioural objective terms, because develop-
ment must allow for individuality and the
teacher has to be encouraged to grow within
the compass of the accepted goals not tied
down in detail. The question of goals is not as
simple as it may seem and close examination
usually reveals not only that goals are not
agreed on but that they are frequently in actual
conflict. All healthy organisations have some
degree of disagreement and conflict but at
certain levels it becomes destructive. All schools
will have many goals but sensible programmes
of development cannot cope with some situa-
tions of conflict. As Perrow (1970) points out
organisational goals can be multiple or even
conflicting. The point here is that for staff
development to work the Heads needs a clear
picture of the goals that his teachers have and a
plan either to support them or change them for
the sake of the whole school. The goal of
growth for a department may be in the interests
of the whole organisation but equally it may
not.
This emphasis upon the professionalism of
subject teachers looks to a consideration of the
place of teacher growth in curriculum develop-
ment. Havelock (1971) has suggested three
approaches to innovation in education:
1) The research, development and dif-
fusion model
2) The social interaction model
3) The problem solving model.
The first approach places the teacher in a
position in which his only professional decision
is whether to join or not. The majority of
teachers do not meet such innovation until the
diffusion stage and nearly all programmes re-
port the remarkable way in which teachers are
able to adulterate the project which has led to
some attempts to produce 'teacher proof mate-
rials. For those schools involved in the early
stages or even more for those teachers seconded
to the projects, this can be full staff develop-
ment. In most cases the influence is limited to
an in-service element which gives teachers
enough background to handle the materials.
Unless the teacher is actually involved in the
research or the development his full profes-
sional capacity is under used and as a process of
teacher development the model is limited.
The social interaction approach makes it
more possible for the teacher professional to
align himself with the change and relying as it
does upon a network of social relations it is
compatible with staff development. In such a
case a programme might well include joining a
team within a school working in a particular
way or visiting other schools.
It is the third approach, the problem
solving model, that Eraut (1972) develops as
the basis for a scheme of consultancy and
support from outside the school but working
within the school. This most directly fits in
with the concept of an overall plan for develop-
ment based on the problems of the school and
the needs of the staff but with the resources of
an outside group. Perhaps we have been con-
cerned too frequently with problems of radical
change in the curriculum and such support
would enable teachers to improve the function-
ing of the school within a structure that fitted
their needs and their goals. It could reduce goal
displacement and with an overall strategy
should reduce goal conflict. Above all it would
aid teachers in the extension of their contribu-
tion, from the potential ability they possess,
towards the effective functioning of the school.
Most schools would welcome such support but
where is it to come from and how can it be
used? If schools were able to examine carefully
their needs for .a programme of development so
that outside agencies were able to contribute, it
would be the first step towards a solution.
However, we know that this recognition of
need is one of the most difficult steps to get
people to take. Thomason's (1970) approach of
what he calls 'organisation training' has already
been mentioned. Miles (1964) suggests that one
effective way of enabling an organisation to
change is to set up 'temporary systems' and he
examines in great detail this concept in the
context of educational change. The examples
he gives are of the beneficial results from
putting groups together in a residential setting,
away from their work place, to use the
dynamics of the temporary group to make the
'unfreezing' of the present system possible. This
view of change as an unfreeze — change —
refreeze process is commented upon by Bell
(1972) and the analysis given by Miles (1964)
of the use of the temporary system seems to
show that here is a concept that will be helpful
to those concerned with such programmes.
With the cut back in initial teacher education it
seems likely that some colleges will have the
opportunity to contribute in this way to the
improvement of schools. One difficulty with
outside consultancy or temporary systems using
outsiders, is that the experts have to be seen to
be facing the problems that the schools really
have rather than those the consultants would
like them to have and they then must be able to
contribute towards a solution. Possibly our first
need is for full staff development programmes
in the initial teacher education sector.
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