Blending in-person and digital approaches to professional development in arts education

Round 4 of the Teacher Development Fund (TDF) had its roots in a time of crisis and unfolded in a landscape of uncertainty. All TDF Rounds recruit between September and March and the work itself takes place over the following two academic years. Therefore, the context for Round 4, which recruited in 2020, was school closures, financial challenge for arts/​cultural organisations, furloughed education staff, lack of work opportunities for artist practitioners and an emerging awareness of the deep and lasting impact that the pandemic would have on learners.

It was also a time when the arts sector responded to the needs of the moment with characteristic energy and creativity. The role of the arts in supporting our children and young people’s learning and wellbeing felt more important than ever. Arts organisations pivoted from live to digital in order to support home learning, there was a proliferation of online resources and ideas for teachers and families, important relationships continued over Zoom and teachers dipped into an array of arts CPD which online platforms made available in a flexible, low-cost and accessible way.

Every year the TDF holds a mirror up to the key themes or concerns of the moment. In 2020 we decided to reflect developing practice in digital and blended approaches in our Round 4 application criteria and ask that proposed CPDL models were blended. We took no view as to what a ​‘good’ or ​‘right’ blend would be, only that it should be bespoke to the needs of the project. Rather, we positioned ourselves as a learner and hoped that the opportunity to fund ten long-term blended CPDL projects, across different art forms and geographies, would help to gather new insights about blended practice that would be of wider benefit to the arts and education sectors.

We were delighted to partner with Chartered College of Teaching, themselves expert in digital/​blended modes of teacher professional learning but also curious about the under-researched context of the arts, to carry out research during the delivery phase from September 2021 to July 2023.

Over those two years the context shifted as lockdowns and the gradual opening up of schools to visitors played out. The report captures the mood of that time and reminds us that the opportunities of blended practice were often held in tension with the desire to work in person and the joy felt when that became possible.

But this is a rich report with fascinating insight into different types of blended practice and much learning about what works. For PHF it shows us that indeed there is no one ​‘right’ blend, rather that good blended practice is rooted in the purpose and context of the work and that choices about modes of delivery and their sequencing flow from the needs of the learner cohort and the nature of the learning content. We continue to believe that blended models offer great opportunity to develop high quality and accessible arts CPD for teachers and we hope that this report will contribute to the sector’s interest and confidence in creating many more.