Blog feed¡La historia de Lorena!
October 26th, 2009While attending the Orkney Learning Festival last week, Margaret Alcorn and I were fortunate enough to meet Lorena Murúa. Lorena, a teacher from Chile, has not only funded her way through additional training needed to top-up her Chilean qualifications, she also travelled from Aberdeen to Kirkwall to take advantage of the great CPD available with our colleagues in Orkney Islands Council. This is her story.
Hi, I am Lorena Murúa. I am from the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile, so you can imagine the differences in landscape and life style. I arrived in this country over 2 years ago. I was a teacher in my country so I did the PGDE in Aberdeen University in order to learn the system and to be able to work here. I found about the Orkney Learning Festival on CPDFind and I thought that was a fantastic opportunity to discover more about the Scottish culture and how education meets the needs of the children in a different context. I am currently on the supply list in Aberdeen City and I am looking forward to get a more extended spell working in Scottish schools.
To support Lorena and others, and as a result of the CPD Team work on the particular CPD needs of colleagues on the supply list, we have decided to set up an online community called CPDSupply. Watch this space for more details!
I know from my own discussions in that beautiful country that Scotland and Chile could learn much from each other. Both countries are proud of their education systems and both have great teachers who are willing to innovate. Both are also outward looking, willing to learn from other countries and other cultures.
I sincerely hope that someone gives Lorena the chance to work for an extended period in a Scottish school, and that she is able to go home with a positive view of Scottish education and of Scottish culture.
Lorena sounds like an inspirational person.There are however, I suspect, a great many very talented number of teachers on the employment/career periphery.
Supply teachers often feel like the poor relations when it comes to supply provision. Some HTs are reluctant to alert/fund CPD for temporary staff so they are left to fend for themselves.
In this climate of educational reform supply teachers have told me that they worry about losing out. Some supply teachers actively seek CPD but others would welcome pointers or a central hub in order to source quality CPD.
This positive action on the part of the CPD team is to be commended.
We are a group of supply teachers who work with our CPD manager, Jacqueline Garry, to arrange CPD on a regional basis for supply teachers. For the past three years the network has produced a supply teachers’ handbook which is available to all supply teachers in the region.
We are currently awaiting the opportunity for all supply teachers to have Glow log-ins
Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help CPDsupply become operational.
Annie McSeveney, Vivien Gray, & Alison Drummond-Reddish
With our CPD manager, Jacqueline Garry, we plan CPD events specifically for Supply Teachers, and for the past three years have produced a Supply Teachers Handbook available (on-line & hard copy) to all supply teachers in the region.
We are currently awaiting Glow log-ins for all supply staff.
We look forward to having an opportunity to participate in a wider forum and would be happy to help in any way we can.
Annie McSeveney, Vivien Gray & Alison Drummond-Reddish