Potential barriers to professional development:
In the perfect world for myself and every member of staff to attend new and refresher courses would be an accomplishment in itself. Unfortunately there will be barriers to cross.
PERSONAL BARRIERS could be in the form of:
Intellectual limitations. We all have different learning styles. Some may have no problem sitting in a class in front of a teacher taking notes or seeing visuals. While others will learn better being more practical. I myself will learn better being more hands on. Show me how to do something and I will be able to do it. However put me in a class room and I find it more difficult to learn. I have tried to overcome this classroom issue by teaching myself not to make lengthy notes on everything that I hear. What I now do is make short notes or do a spider diagram.
Language barriers could play a big part in a member of staff understanding what they are hearing and reading. Should this happen managers should encourage this member of staff to get extra help from their managers and Early Years Foundation Stage advisor. English for speakers of other languages or for additional language courses should be suggested for this person to attend.
Over and less confident. Then you may have a member of staff who is over confident and think training/courses are a waste of time and be less willing to attend. Then on the other end of the spectrum there may be a member of staff who lacks confidence. In these cases managers should point out why it is important to attended training/courses, there are times when you may have to play mind games with the over