The value of short Earth science continuing professional development for trainee primary school teachers

Abstract

The paper investigates the potential of Earth science for the development of primary school science. The evaluation from workshops run by the Earth Science Education Unit for trainee primary teachers was appraised to assess the effectiveness of the short continuing professional development (CPD) programmes over the period 2009–2015. Trainee teacher comments are analysed using thematic analysis, which identified points recognised by Guskey (2000) as being the most important ideas for effective CPD programmes. Despite these workshops being short, lasting generally less than 2 h each, the conclusion reached was that they offered useful teaching ideas, resources and background information which the trainees could and would apply in the classroom.