The Society and CPD - further information

This sub-section of our website carries information about a range of other activities of the Society in the general area of continuing professional development (CPD). This work is evolving all the time and other material will be added here as necessary. For the present, this webpage is organised as a linear list of separate topics with links as necessary. Please browse through it.

Please return to the home page of our CPD section to find other information.

Mentoring for Graduate Statisticians

The Society provides a mentoring service for holders of its Graduate Statistician status (GradStat) to assist them with professional development towards Chartered Statistician status (CStat). Please see the mentoring section of our website.

CPD for teachers

This very important area was highlighted by the Report of the Post-14 Mathematics Inquiry (the "Smith Report"). A major outcome of the Inquiry was the establishment of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. The Society is closely involved with the activities of the Centre and with other work aimed at setting up a good nationwide spectrum of CPD opportunities aimed at teachers.

Our professional examinations in statistics may be of interest to teachers who wish to extend their subject knowledge and have formal recognition of it in terms of a qualification.

The Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education offers a distance-learning programme leading to a Certificate in Teaching Statistics up to Pre-university Level. This programme develops both subject knowledge and the related pedagogy.

You may be interested to read our response to the consultation concerning CPD for teachers organised by ACME in 2002. (ACME is the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education.)

CPD for university academics

The attention of academics, particularly those who are new or fairly new to statistics teaching, is drawn to the programme leading to a Certificate in Teaching Statistics in Higher Education that is offered by the Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education.

CPD session at RSS 2000 conference

The Professional Affairs Committee of the Society organised a session on CPD at the Society's conference in 2000 at the University of Reading. Outlines of the material from that session are available for download. Please follow the link above.

CPD session at RSS-PSI 2005 conference

At the joint RSS-PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry) conference in 2005 at Cardiff, a consultation session was organised to find out more about CPD issues that most concern statisticians in the healthcare sector and to see to what extent the sector's needs were being met by the RSS CPD policy. The report of this session is available for download as a PDF file. The issues raised will inform the work of a joint RSS-PSI working group seeking to improve CPD in the healthcare sector.

PARN

The Society is a subscribing member of PARN, the Professional Associations Research Network. PARN is a membership organisation based at the University of Bristol. Its mission is "to increase the profile of issues relating to professionals, professionalism and professional bodies through research and networking with the aim of determining and promoting professional good practice". It is very energetic in the CPD area. Among many other activities, it publishes a regular newsletter "CPD Spotlight" which can be accessed from the PARN website.