Last year, the shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt noted during a speech at the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers that parents are quite “baffled” as to why schools in England have to close for in-service training days (otherwise known as Inset or Baker days).

The Labour MP said: “If we want to build a progressive case for professional development ... then we need to take parents with us … and one of the elements of the school calendar that really baffles them is Inset days.

"In my experience, schools inform parents about all sorts of things - from dinner money demands to uniform requirements to recycling rates - but one of the most important elements that boost their children's learning is never explained.”

As a result, he continued, when it comes to an extremely important area of the profession - continuing professional development (CPD) - parents are, in effect, left with “an information black hole”.

Fast-forward to the present day and it seems that support is growing for not only increasing visibility of these training days, but making them more meaningful and effective, as opposed to a prescriptive box-ticking exercise.

A new paper from the Teacher Development Trust, produced with support from TES Global, is calling on all relevant parties to move away from a “one-off, one-day” CPD programme and adopt longer-term programmes that deliver better results for teachers, schools and their pupils.

Titled Great Teaching: Lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development, the study discusses what “constitutes” as being effective CPD. The key takeaway is it has to be reflective of what CPD is intended for, the clue being in the title itself (continuing).

“The right types of teacher development help students succeed and teachers thrive. However, too much provision in England has inconsistent quality and a lack of focus on pupils needs,” said David Weston, chief executive at The Teacher Development Trust and chair of the Department for Education’s CPD Expert Group.

“As a result, we run a serious risk of lagging behind our international counterparts when it comes to empowering teachers to help our pupils. Teaching is the most fundamentally important profession for our future generation and we need to harness the very best evidence about how to grow our teachers.”

The authors of the report have come up with what it believes are the key eight features of CPD. They include a long-term focus; bespoke engagement; streamlining professional development processes, content and activities; and emphasis on subject knowledge.

Incorporating certain activities that are indicative of CPD; receiving external input from specialists;  promoting collaboration and peer learning; and having school leaders involved, round up the essential components of a high-quality CPD programme.