We analysed 160 recent Ofsted inspection reports to understand what the relationship between professional development (PD) and teaching quality looks like in practice. The findings are useful for quality managers and senior leaders thinking about how PD is designed and evaluated, not just delivered.
The analysis of inspection reports from late 2025 and early 2026 found that the most common pattern in providers with weaker curriculum outcomes wasn’t an absence of PD. It was PD that wasn’t connected to actual gaps. Providers running “a range of professional development” without diagnosing what staff needed were consistently more likely to receive Needs Attention for curriculum and teaching.
The dataset covers 160 providers: independent training providers, FE colleges, employer providers, adult and community learning, sixth form colleges, specialist colleges and universities.
Leadership and teaching quality move together
The clearest pattern in the data is that leadership grade and curriculum and teaching grade track each other closely. No provider with Needs Attention for leadership achieved Strong for curriculum and teaching. No provider with Strong leadership fell to Needs Attention for curriculum and teaching. The relationship is not causal in any simple sense, but the correlation across 160 providers is sufficiently consistent to warrant consideration within the provider context.
For quality managers, the practical read is this: improvement work in teaching and learning is more likely to land where leadership is in good shape. Where leadership weaknesses exist, addressing them tends to be the precondition rather than the sequel. I recommend this be an agenda item for your next SLT or board meeting if you have concerns.
Three PD patterns associated with weaker outcomes
Across the 14 providers rated Needs Attention for curriculum and teaching, three PD-related patterns appear repeatedly in the inspection narratives.
Volume without targeting. The most common pattern. Providers run activities, such as workshops, updates, briefings, but without diagnosing the actual gaps in pedagogy, subject expertise, or understanding of learner needs. The result is staff development that looks purposeful on paper and changes relatively little in practice.
Technical updating without pedagogical development. Several providers kept staff current on sector content but did not invest equally in how staff teach that content. Both are necessary. Strong providers treat them as distinct priorities and plan for both.
Programmes introduced too recently to evaluate. A notable share of providers with weaker curriculum outcomes had already launched new PD programmes by the point of inspection, but inspectors noted it was too early to see the effect. For quality managers, the implication is about timing and planning. An action to take is, if improvement programmes are being introduced in response to identified weakness, building in interim impact checks from the start gives a clearer read on progress before the next inspection.
What the strongest providers appear to consistently do
Across providers achieving both Strong leadership and Strong curriculum and teaching, four practices appear repeatedly in the inspection narrative.
- They build and maintain staff subject and industry expertise actively. Leaders invest in keeping it current, and inspectors notice when they do.
- They invest in pedagogical development as a distinct priority from technical updating. Staff need to know their subject. They also need to know how to teach it to the learners in front of them. Strong providers do not treat these as the same thing.
- They embed structured (peer) observation, coaching and communities of practice into normal working life. These features appear consistently in Strong-curriculum reports and less often in weaker ones. They require an investment in time and appear to be the mechanism through which development insights change practice.
- They evaluate whether PD changes what learners experience, not just whether staff attended. Strong providers report on impact. Expected providers more often report on delivery. Shifting the question from “did staff complete it?” to “did this change what learners experience?” is a low-cost adjustment that appears to have real returns.
A useful question for the next PD planning cycle
Quality assurance processes are well placed to surface this. When reviewing professional development plans, the productive questions are not “how much PD is staff receiving?” but “how was this programme designed, what evidence was it based on, and how will we know whether it has worked?” Those are different questions with different answers, and the difference shows up in inspection outcomes.
The full report, including provider-type breakdowns, cross-tabulation data and direct inspection report extracts, is available from SDN Mesma Group. It covers 160 providers across all main further education & skills provision types under the current Education Inspection Framework.