Benefits

The benefits of subscription to the PDC will include demonstration of the value placed on teachers in the borough, an important teacher retention issue. As well as providing a training centre and an informal meeting place for all staff in schools, the Centre provides opportunities for headteachers, deputies and heads of departments to meet with peers for professional development. In this way teachers (and other school staff) automatically belong to professional networks of teaching staff in Tower Hamlets.

Courses are being planned which will offer accredited routes to Masters degrees in conjunction with St Martin's College. Similarly a range of access routes to higher qualifications are offered to teaching assistants. Links are being made with the London Leadership centre and NCSL to determine whether their courses can be delivered locally.

In seeking to become a Centre of Excellence for delivering CPD events, the PDC will respond to schools' expressed needs. It will develop activities to foster adult learning, including information and good practice in shadowing, observation, visits, exchanges, teacher research, networking, and the collection and dissemination of information on the best of CPD practice currently available.