CPD Team

The CPD Team are very grateful for the support given by Patricia Kemp and her team who work on the online service. Without them, valuable online services like CPDFind, CPDScotland, CPDReflect and even this blog would not be possible.

Patricia would like to learn more about how you use all of the LTS websites and what improvements you think could be made.

The survey should only take you 5-10 minutes to complete. If you leave your name and email address after answering all the questions, you will be entered into a prize draw to win one of two 4GB iPod Nanos.

LTS Online Service survey

The survey is open until 23 January 2009

Thank you for your time.

It was great to see friends from North Ayrshire again today. Pam Dunsmore, Gillian Hamilton and Lorraine Facchini. That’s Gillian and Pam in the picture (as Lorraine had left before I remembered to get the camera out!) Some of their remits have been changed since my last visit but all of them are still passionate about CPD. Among the topics we discussed were; CPD on Glow, a local version of CPDFind, allowing for CPDReflect in PRD policies, how best to share practice in CFE and the EAC Critical Skills programme.

Oh and Christmas cake (not pictured)!

I know that September seems a long way off, but already planning for SLF 2009 is well underway. The themes for next year’s festival are Curriculum for Excellence: Making the Change and Glow. The National CPD Team, not surprisingly, are looking to showcase innovative CPD as a means of overtaking these themes. All members of the CPD Team will be taking an active part but there is always room for more!
 If you want to feature on next year’s programme then a 200 word abstract must be presented to the Conference Secretariat by December 19th 2009. Follow this link for more details.

Stop press!

The deadline for submissions for SLF 2009 has been extended until Friday 30 January 2009 with approved abstracts being invited to present at the conference by Monday 2 March 2009. If you have any questions about the submission process please contact Martin Jack on martinjack@thinkdifferentevents.co.uk or 0141 221 7423.

The Scottish Education Awards 2009 were launched on Tuesday 18 November 2008 by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Fiona Hyslop MSP, at Shawlands Academy in Glasgow, winner of the BTScotland Greener Schools Award 2008.
The Awards highlight best practice in Scottish classrooms, celebrate schools and acknowledge the dedicated individuals who devote their lives to helping young people fulfil their potential. Entry to the Awards is open to all publicly funded schools, including secondary, primary, nursery and special schools.
Further details of the Awards and the categories can be found on the Scottish Education Awards website
Nominations are open until Friday 27 February 2009.

I had a very interesting discussion yesterday with Jackie Baker of the Open University. We talked first about CPDFind and how the OU want to be able to do even more with the system. They currently offer over 50 opportunities through CPDFind and the CPD Team are grateful for their support. The fact that they have over 600 more waiting to go on the system is very gratifying and we will do all we can to facilitate this! 

We also had a conversation about OpenLearn, OU’s learning portal. What is on offer is quite impressive:

• Openlearn had over 3 million visitors in the last 2 years and they have recently launched OpenLearn Scotland
• It contains 5000+ hours of learning
• They have a dedicated Labspace with another 3000 hours of discontinued learning materials, where members can ‘do their own thing!’
• A Knowledge Media Institute for those interested in the future of learning

We look forward to continuing the discussion with Jackie and her colleagues to make these high-quality resources more visible to educators in Scotland.

We would love to hear from you if you or colleagues have used these resources for CPD. Please leave a comment!

Education and Lifelong Learning Research Findings 2008: Review of Work Experience in Scotland http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/249895/0072297.pdf

Work experience is one of a number of opportunities through which all young people can develop the skills for learning, life and work. The Scottish Government commissioned Eddy Adams Consultants to carry out scoping research on work experience, the findings of which would inform the development of work experience within Curriculum for Excellence. This Research Findings outlines the main findings of the study.

Some of the main findings are:

• Scotland has a commitment to providing universal access to work experience. This is unusual, as comparator countries tend to restrict work placement opportunities to pupils on a vocational pathway.
• In Scotland, work experience placements are part of most mainstream pupils’ school experience, with an estimated 86% of S4 pupils taking part in 2007/08. Participation rates amongst S5 and S6 pupils are much lower.
• Growing numbers of non-mainstream schools are offering work experience to pupils with additional support needs, usually beyond S4. These are characterised by higher support ratios and innovative approaches. Pupils with additional support needs within mainstream schools are unlikely to access equivalent levels of additional support.

Although the percentage of pupils leaving school at 16 has halved since work experience began, the prevalent model continues to be a one week placement in the final year of compulsory education. This research raises questions about the timing of work
experience placements and the whole year approach.