What is continuing professional development in childcare?

Continuing professional development (CPD) in childcare is the ongoing, planned learning that practitioners undertake to strengthen their skills, knowledge and practice throughout their careers, directly improving outcomes for the children in their care. It is not a single course or a certificate on a wall. It is a continuous cycle of identifying a gap, learning something new, applying it, and reflecting on what changed.

Three things follow from that definition, and they matter more than the definition itself:

• CPD only counts if it changes practice. A workshop that never reaches the playroom floor is not development, it is attendance.
• Planning beats improvising. Settings that map CPD against real gaps, rather than whatever course happens to be available, see faster improvement.
• Recording as you go protects you at inspection. A real-time log of what you learned and how you used it is worth more than a folder of certificates.

The sections below walk through why CPD matters for quality and morale, what genuinely counts as CPD, what Ofsted and the Department for Education expect to see, how to plan and record it, and what managers can do this term to make it stick. If you only need the practical templates, skip to the planning and manager sections; if you want the evidence base first, keep reading.

Table of Contents

• Why continuing professional development matters in early years
• What actually counts as CPD: examples that hold up
• What Ofsted, the EYFS and DfE guidance expect
• How to plan, run and record CPD
• What managers can do to embed CPD properly
• Where to find good CPD: providers, funding and networks
• Why job-embedded CPD outperforms one-off training
• Key takeaways for continuing professional development in childcare
• Frequently asked questions
• Sources

Why continuing professional development matters in early years

CPD is the single biggest lever a setting has over the quality of its provision, short of staffing ratios themselves. The OECD’s Starting Strong analysis found that professional development works best when it is sustained, embedded in daily practice, coherent with what staff already know, and backed by dedicated time and resources rather than squeezed in around the edges of a shift.

That last point is where many settings fall down. A single training afternoon rarely shifts behaviour on its own. Sector research from the Early Childhood Workforce initiative links sustained professional development participation directly to staff motivation, career progression, and the overall quality of the programme a child experiences. Practitioners who keep learning tend to stay in the sector longer, which matters given how much turnover costs settings in continuity and relationship-building with children.

The practical benefits split roughly three ways:

• For children: more consistent, evidence-informed interactions, better identification of emerging needs, and a curriculum that reflects current thinking rather than habits from a decade ago.
• For practitioners: genuine confidence in their own judgement, a clearer route toward higher qualifications, and a stronger sense of professional identity rather than “just a job”.
• For managers: a workforce that is easier to retain, and evidence trail that stands up when an inspector asks how quality is maintained. Thesunflowernursery’s approach to training childcare staff reflects exactly this link between staff development and day-to-day care quality.

What actually counts as CPD: examples that hold up

CPD is broader than most practitioners assume, and that is good news, because it means the learning you are already doing informally probably counts, provided you can show how it changed your practice.

Formal activities tend to have a clear structure, an assessor, or a certificate at the end:

• Accredited qualifications (Level 3, Level 5, Early Years Degree routes)
• Externally run workshops on safeguarding, SEND, or curriculum design
• DfE-funded online programmes, including Early years child development training and the Maths Champions programme
• University or college modules linked to early childhood studies

Informal, job-embedded activities are less visible but often more effective at changing daily behaviour:

• Peer observation, where a colleague watches your practice and gives structured feedback
• Coaching cycles between a mentor and a newer practitioner
• Reflective journals kept after significant interactions or incidents
• Small-scale action research, such as trialling a new transition routine for two weeks and tracking what happens
• Video-observation of your own practice, reviewed against a specific question

Type of activity	Typical format	What it demonstrates at inspection
Accredited course or qualification	Structured, assessed, timetabled	Depth of knowledge, formal competence
Peer observation and feedback	Informal, ongoing, paired	Reflective practice, willingness to change
Coaching cycle	Structured but flexible, mentor led	Applied learning, embedded change
DfE-funded online module	Self-paced, free, government-backed	Currency of knowledge, use of funded support
Action research project	Short cycle, practitioner led	Evidence of impact on specific practice

Pro Tip: If you can only describe an activity as “I attended”, it probably is not finished CPD yet. Add one sentence about what you changed afterwards, and it becomes evidence.

Job-embedded methods like peer observation and coaching sit at the centre of most quality frameworks now, precisely because they force reflection rather than passive listening. Thesunflowernursery’s piece on the role of nursery teachers covers how these informal methods develop alongside qualifications.

What Ofsted, the EYFS and DfE guidance expect

Regulators are not looking for a stack of certificates. They are looking for evidence that learning has changed something a child experiences.

The DfE’s own guidance on early years continuing professional development and support sets out free training routes, including stronger practice hubs designed to connect settings with evidence-based improvement work rather than generic content. This matters because it signals what “good” CPD looks like in the eyes of the department that shapes the EYFS itself: practical, connected to real practice, and supported rather than bolted on.

Inspectors typically look for a handful of concrete things when they ask about staff development:

• A named responsibility for CPD, whether that sits with a manager or a designated lead
• Evidence that CPD is linked to identified gaps in knowledge or practice, not chosen at random
• Examples of how a specific piece of learning changed something observable in the room
• A record that is current, not reconstructed the week before an inspection
• Some evidence of collaborative or job-embedded learning, not only external courses

Expectation	What it looks like in practice
Named CPD responsibility	A manager or SENCO tracks who has done what and why
Learning linked to gaps	CPD plan references specific practice weaknesses or curriculum needs
Evidence of applied change	Log entries note what was tried differently afterwards
Real-time recording	Entries dated close to the activity, not backfilled
Mix of formal and informal	Courses sit alongside peer observation and coaching notes

Local authorities also publish their own expectations. Nottinghamshire County Council’s guidance, for instance, sets out what providers in that area are expected to demonstrate, and most authorities publish something similar. It is worth checking your own local authority’s page alongside the national DfE guidance, since funded offers and expectations vary slightly by region.

How to plan, run and record CPD

Effective CPD follows a cycle, not a calendar entry. Guidance from Social Care Wales frames it as a loop rather than a straight line: you never really finish, you just move to the next gap.

1. Identify the gap. Be specific. “Improve behaviour management” is too vague; “reduce transition-time meltdowns in the two-year-old room” is workable.
2. Choose the right approach. Match the method to the gap. A knowledge gap might need a course; a practice habit might need coaching or peer observation instead.
3. Participate fully. Attend, read, or practise with intent, not just to tick a box.
4. Apply it in the room. Try the new approach with real children within a week or two, while it is still fresh.
5. Reflect and record the impact. Note what changed, what did not, and what you would try next.

A systematic review of European CPD interventions found that approaches with a feedback loop, such as coaching or video-observation, outperformed one-off training precisely because they force practitioners through steps four and five. Skipping the reflection step is the most common reason CPD fails to stick.

Here is what a usable log entry looks like:

• Date: 14 January 2026
• Learning aim: Support a non-verbal EAL child during snack time
• Activity: 30-minute peer observation with the SENCO, followed by a short coaching conversation
• Applied change: Introduced a visual choice board at snack time
• Evidence of impact: Child independently selected food using the board within four days; reduced frustration noted by two staff members

Research into CPD survey data recommends exactly this kind of real-time practitioner log over retrospective lists, because memory fades fast and inspectors respond better to specific narratives than to bullet points of course titles.

Pro Tip: Write the “impact” line before you write the “activity” line. Starting from the child’s outcome forces you to justify the learning, rather than justifying the certificate.

What managers can do to embed CPD properly

Responsibility for CPD does not sit solely with individual practitioners. A manager who wants a genuine learning culture, not just a training budget, needs to do several things deliberately.

• Allocate protected time, not just money. A course booked during nap time with no cover arranged rarely gets followed up.
• Set a small number of setting-wide learning goals each term, so individual CPD choices connect to a shared purpose rather than personal preference alone.
• Model learning yourself. Staff notice when a manager treats their own development as optional.
• Build peer observation and coaching into the rota, rather than leaving it to happen if there is time.
• Recognise informal learning in appraisals, including reflective conversations and small trials of new approaches, not only completed courses.

Watch for activity that looks like CPD but is not. A few red flags are worth naming directly:

• Certificate collecting: staff attend courses because they are free or available, with no link to an identified gap
• One-off checkbox training with no follow-up conversation or observation afterwards
• Training chosen entirely by external availability rather than the setting’s own priorities
• Logs filled in months later, reconstructed from memory rather than recorded at the time

Thesunflowernursery’s guide to explaining continuous professional development covers the foundational planning tools managers can adapt for their own setting’s rota and appraisal cycle.

Where to find good CPD: providers, funding and networks

Quality varies enormously across the CPD market, so it is worth being selective rather than booking whatever arrives in an email newsletter.

• Government-funded online programmes, including the DfE’s free offers such as Maths Champions and Early years child development training, accessed through GOV.UK’s CPD guidance
• Local authority training, which often reflects regional priorities and is sometimes free or subsidised for registered providers
• Accredited providers and university early years courses, useful for staff working toward higher qualifications
• Stronger practice hubs, designed specifically to connect settings with evidence-based improvement work rather than generic content
• Professional networks and peer hubs, including informal manager networks that share good practice locally

When choosing a provider, run a short quality check before committing time or budget:

• Does it state a clear, specific learning outcome, or just a broad topic?
• Does it include practical application, not only theory?
• Is there any follow-up support, or does the learning stop the moment the session ends?
• Can the provider point to any evidence of impact from previous cohorts?

For classroom-facing methods that support applied learning between formal sessions, resources such as practical lesson plans and guidance on role-play learning give practitioners something concrete to trial immediately after a training session, which is exactly the kind of quick application that makes learning stick. Always check your local authority’s own page too, since funded offers and stronger practice hub contacts differ by region.

Why job-embedded CPD outperforms one-off training

The evidence here is consistent enough that it is worth being blunt about it: a single external workshop, however well delivered, rarely changes what happens in a room the next day. Job-embedded CPD does, because it happens in the same context where the change needs to occur.

The European systematic literature review found that CPD interventions with a feedback component, coaching, video-observation, or structured action research, produced measurably better improvements in practitioner behaviour than isolated training sessions. The mechanism is fairly simple: feedback close to the moment of practice corrects small habits before they calcify, while a workshop delivered weeks before or after the relevant situation has nothing to correct against.

Feature	Job-embedded CPD	One-off training
Typical duration	Weeks, ongoing cycles	Half a day to a day
Likely impact on daily practice	High, direct feedback loop	Variable, often fades quickly
Evidence needed to demonstrate impact	Observation notes, before/after comparison	Attendance certificate
Cost per participant	Often lower, uses existing staff time	Can be higher, external fees

A useful reflection prompt to run after any observed change, whether from coaching, a course, or a trial of new practice, looks like this:

• What did I try differently?
• What did I notice in the child’s response?
• Would I do this again, and what would I adjust?
• Who else in the setting should know about this?

That last question matters more than it sounds. Individual CPD that never gets shared with colleagues improves one practitioner’s practice; shared CPD improves the setting’s. Thesunflowernursery’s article on seasonal activity planning shows how a single practical idea, applied and shared across a room team, tends to spread faster than a certificate ever does.

A manager’s own experience of one CPD cycle

One nursery manager noticed that several two-year-olds were struggling badly with the transition from free play to lunch, with tears and refusals most days. Rather than booking a generic behaviour course, she arranged a 20-minute peer observation with a colleague from another room known for smooth transitions, followed by a coaching conversation about what specifically she was doing differently, mainly a five-minute visual and verbal warning sequence before each change.

The manager trialled the same warning sequence the following week. Transition-time distress dropped noticeably within days, and she recorded the change in her own CPD log with a note on what the children’s response had actually been, not just what she had done. The lesson she carried forward was simple: the most useful CPD she had that term cost nothing and took twenty minutes, because it was specific to her own room’s problem rather than a general topic chosen off a training calendar.

Key takeaways for continuing professional development in childcare

Continuing professional development in childcare works when it is treated as a continuous, evidence-linked cycle rather than a one-off course, and recorded in real time rather than reconstructed later.

Point	Details
Start a real-time CPD log	Record date, aim, activity and impact as it happens, not weeks later.
Schedule peer observation	Build coaching and observation cycles into the rota, not left to chance.
Check DfE-funded programmes	Look at GOV.UK’s free offers, including Maths Champions and stronger practice hubs.
Allocate protected time	Managers should budget time, not just money, for learning to be applied.
Link every activity to outcomes	Ask what changed for children, not just what was attended.

Frequently asked questions

What is continuing professional development in childcare, in one sentence?
CPD in childcare is the ongoing, planned learning practitioners undertake throughout their careers to improve their practice and the outcomes of the children they work with, recorded and reflected on as they go.

How much CPD should a practitioner do each year?
There is no single national minimum hours figure that applies to all roles; instead, settings should plan CPD against identified gaps and role requirements, checking their own local authority and the DfE’s guidance for any funded expectations tied to specific programmes.

Does attending a course automatically count as CPD?
Attendance alone is not enough. A course only counts as meaningful CPD once you can show how it changed something in your practice and, ideally, what impact that change had on the children involved.

What should a CPD log actually include?
A useful entry records the date, the specific learning aim, the activity undertaken, what you changed in practice afterwards, and any observed impact on children, following the real-time recording approach recommended in CPD survey research.

Who is responsible for CPD in a nursery setting?
Individual practitioners are responsible for engaging with their own learning, but managers carry responsibility for allocating time, resources and a structured plan that connects CPD to the setting’s priorities and to EYFS quality expectations.

Sources

• Gov
• Continuous professional development and ECEC quality: Findings from a European systematic literature review
• Developing early childhood education and care staff expertise: Results from TALIS Starting Strong 2024 | OECD
• Continuing professional development in early childhood education: synthesis of surveys and recommendations

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