Cardinal Newman — A CPD journal with the school's full Teaching and Learning Handbook baked into the front

The brief

Cardinal Newman came to us for a CPD journal that would sit with each member of staff across the year — somewhere to log every course, book, webinar and podcast they engaged with, what they took from it, and what they were going to do differently as a result. The school didn't want a generic reflection booklet; they wanted their full Teaching and Learning Handbook in the same place as the working pages, so the research, the strategies, the reading lists and the journal entries lived as one document. The journal also needed one consistent reflection format repeated through the back of the book, so a teacher writing up their tenth piece of CPD uses the same fields as their first.

What we designed

Working with Cardinal Newman, we built a CPD journal anchored on a single repeating reflection template, with the school's full Teaching and Learning Handbook integrated into the front.

An opening Teaching and Learning Handbook setting out the school's CPD philosophy — a Dylan Wiliam quote on improvement, the school's "Together towards our Lord, through learning, love and faith" mission, and the four-step CPD cycle staff are asked to follow: reflect and complete a CPD plan, work through the OneNote videos and reading, test a strategy with one class for at least four weeks, then reflect and share with colleagues.
Six pedagogical strand sections, each treated the same way — context, research summary, visual model and a further reading list with book covers and links:
– Behaviour and Relationships, with Tom Bennett's "Get in front of their behaviour" model, the "What do positive relationships look like?" checklist and reading from Bennett, Lemov, Dix and Willingham.
– Curriculum and Planning, with the knowledge-rich curriculum principles from Tom Sherrington, an expert-blindness / depth-before-speed model, and a cognitive-load-in-planning grid (chunking, simplify, scaffolding, dual coding and more).
– Modelling and Explanations, with small steps, plan for errors, fading effect, the I/We/You stages mapped against Cognitive Load Theory and Rosenshine, and the cognitive science diagrams on working memory and overload.
– Practice and Retrieval, with the benefits of retrieval practice, Tom Sherrington's seven principles, classroom techniques (retrieval grids, brain dumps, Cops & Robbers, Flashback Friday) and the Kate Jones visual summary.
– Questioning, with cold calling, Pose-Pause-Pounce-Bounce, Think-Pair-Share, ten questioning strategies and ten checking-for-understanding techniques.
– Oracy, with classroom activities (Questions? Questions!, Fillers Beware, Roll Call, Pace Yourself), the six Types of Talk roles, a debate structure and subject-by-subject debate motions.
A visual CPD timeline mapping the school's CPD journey from 2015 to 2023 and beyond — Mike Hughes keynotes, lesson observations, NPQ pathways, the COVID pivot to OneNote and Teams, Walkthrus, coaching, wellbeing CPD, Early Careers Framework training — anchored by the Richard Branson line "Train people well enough so that they can leave, treat them well enough so that they don't want to."
A repeating two-page CPD reflection spread used for every entry: the title of the course, book, webinar or podcast at the top, an overview section, an open notes panel, then key takeaways, next steps and impact on the facing page — closed off with a reminder to complete the Microsoft Form for each CPD record.
The same reflection template repeated through the back of the journal so there's no decision to make — each new piece of CPD goes in the next blank spread.

The finished book

CPD journals land at Cardinal Newman for the staff body, giving every teacher a single book that doubles as their handbook and their working record — the research, the strategies and the reading list at the front, and the year's CPD reflections logged at the back, all in one place.