As increasing numbers of teachers leave the profession, talent development is becoming more and more important for schools and trusts.��

Our recently published report ‘Grow your own: Best practice for developing teaching talent in school trusts’ found 55% of MATs think teacher training helps attract staff – and vitally, 50% also reported it to improve retention.��

This highlights the essential and unique role professional learning plays for trusts: it has leverage for both recruitment and retention.��

Our report is based on data including in-depth interviews with MAT leaders and a survey from trusts of varied size and phase. This blog explores our findings to look at the most common strengths and challenges reported by trusts.��

Types of professional learning 

Professional learning for teachers can take different forms at different stages of a teacher’s career, from mandatory safeguarding training to leadership development.��

In our report, we focused on two types of learning: 

• Training for teachers entering the profession (eg initial teacher training or ITT)  

• Continuing professional development (CPD) for in-service teachers 

Our survey findings differentiated between the two, which means that we can see some interesting differences in the perceived strengths and challenges trusts reported for each type of professional learning.��

Strengths reported by trusts in professional development and teacher training

For teacher training, the top 3 strengths reported were: 

• Attracts people to join our trust 

• Provides a career development pathway for our teaching staff 

• Improves staff retention 

For CPD, the top 3 strengths reported were: 

• Improves staff performance 

• We can share and learn from good practice 

• Enables succession planning by developing future leaders 

Teacher training as an attract and retain tool

The theme of how to recruit and retain teachers comes through strongly in our report, with teacher training recognised as an important lever for both.�� 

Training and qualifying new teachers is vital for schools to ensure a pipeline of fresh talent entering the teaching workforce.��Trusts that train their own teachers or work with a partner to offer training such as school-based initial teacher training (ITT) can promote their offering as a way of attracting new staff.��

Training teachers in schools also means that trainee teachers are embedded in the school culture from the start – getting to know staff, pupils and parents – and are more likely to stay.

Trusts also recognise the value of teacher training in providing a career development pathway for existing staff.��One way that trusts are achieving this is by offering diverse progression routes, such as apprenticeships, for their staff.�� 

Providing this has a twofold benefit – firstly, it means staff see a trust as supportive of their future, increasing goodwill towards the trust which makes staff want to stay.��Secondly, it also gives staff opportunities for personal growth and career progression within their school, further improving retention.

How professional development improves staff performance 

Improving staff performance was the top strength of CPD reported by the trusts in our research.��Effective professional development bridges the gap between theory and the practical reality of teaching, improving staff performance.

There’s much more to be said about how to make professional development effective beyond the scope of this article, but here we’ll highlight two key elements of effective professional development from our report: 

1. It’s evidence-based – that is, the content of the learning is clearly rooted in the latest pedagogical research.��

2. It’s applicable to the classroom – that is, it has a practical impact on actual teaching.��

Ensuring professional development can be applied to a teacher’s everyday practice is key to improving staff performance. For example, a focus on improving subject knowledge and classroom instruction gives learning a direct application in the classroom.��

How professional development creates opportunities to share and learn from good practice

Trusts reported that a key strength of CPD is that it enables them to share and learn from good practice. Collaboration is key in supporting learning. Examples include: 

• Using professional networks for peer support, both within the same school and between schools within the trust’s school group – these enable shared learning and sharing of best practice, and can be facilitated by a mix of online and in-person meetings 

• Trusts networking with other trusts, which helps them better understand different perspectives, see what good practice looks like in other trusts and raise their trust’s profile 

However, heavy teacher workloads posed a challenge here, as large workloads can mean teachers lack time for meaningful collaboration.��

How professional development can enable succession planning 

Using CPD to provide clear career development pathways for staff increases retention, motivation and engagement – and significantly, strengthens talent pipelines.��

While increasing staff retention and motivation is key in itself, we also found that by investing in their staff’s development, trusts are directly developing their own future leaders.��

That is, not only does CPD encourage staff to stay with a school or trust, it also gives them the skills, understanding and confidence that they need to one day progress into leadership roles.��In this sense, professional development is helping these trusts maintain themselves and support their own futures.��

Challenges reported by trusts in professional development and teacher training 

For teacher training, the top 3 challenges reported were: 

• Allowing time for staff to train and teach 

• Limited budget 

• Including specialist coverage in the training (e.g. for SEND) 

For CPD, the top 3 strengths reported were: 

• Limited budget 

• Allowing time for staff to train and teach 

• Ensuring consistent provision across all our schools 

Time and workload challenges 

Finding time for training was reported as a significant challenge in both CPD and teacher training. This reflects ongoing challenges in education around heavy teacher workloads.��

Workload is a key driver of stress for teachers and is a key reason for teachers leaving the profession – so the fact a lack of time for training was so widely reported to us is significant.��

It’s essential to allocate protected time for CPD and training so that it remains a priority for a busy workforce, and to ensure trusts reap the benefits of professional development such as improved retention and staff wellbeing.��

One way that trusts are addressing timing challenges is by making learning flexible, for example by recording live sessions so all staff can access learning.��

Considering different ways of learning is another way of balancing development with teacher workloads.��This could include informal or independent learning, such as peer learning and professional reading.�� 

Budget constraints 

Investing in professional development is key to its success. While limited budgets were raised as a challenge, 52% of trusts we surveyed reported that they expect to increase investment in professional development over the next three years.��

This shows that for many trusts, despite the budget constraints they face, professional development remains a protected investment that drives retention and improved outcomes.��

However, it’s important for trusts to ensure continued investment in CPD to nurture teaching talent and support their own futures.��One way to mitigate budget constraints is with government funding, such as for apprenticeships, for which schools can have at least 95% of fees covered (even if they don’t pay the apprenticeship levy).��

Similarly, the government announced £200 million in funding for SEND training earlier this year.��Exploring these options enables trusts to mitigate against limited budgets for training and CPD.��

Specialist SEND training 

As our report states: “inclusive professional learning benefits every pupil and every teacher”.��However, trusts identified covering specialist areas such as SEND as a significant challenge in teacher training, and it was the fourth most reported CPD challenge, too.

 from 2025 states only 45% of early career teachers feel their ITT prepared them to confidently support pupils with SEND.��As such, inclusive practice needs to be embedded in teacher training to ensure our teachers can support the increasing number of pupils with SEND.�� 

It’s clear there is a strong need for adaptable, specialist training that equips teachers to meet complex needs.��This links back to our previous finding around effective professional development – CPD that is applicable to the real classroom situations that teachers are facing is much more likely to be impactful.��

A report for ambitious trusts 

���ܰ���‘Grow your own’ report is based on our findings from talking with trusts across England about best practice for developing teaching talent.

The report examines how MATs and school groups use professional learning to ensure their teachers thrive in the classroom.�� 

Read the free-to-access report today to explore our findings in depth and learn how your trust can secure its own future talent.��

Download the report