I am doing a workshop at the National Conference for Chartered Teachers today. To save time and allow more time for discussion, these are the links and a copy of the presentation!

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This is a guest post on behalf of our colleagues in the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) 

GTC Scotland announces that the current Accreditation Route, organised by GTC Scotland will close for application from 31 August 2008. All teachers who have registered with GTC Scotland before this date will have two years to complete their submission and a further three years should a re-submission be required. More information on the GTCS web site

Ollie Bray continues to share his thoughts on the second day of the International Summer School.

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Mathew MacIver, the Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland was the chair for the second day of the International Summer School. In his opening remarks Mathew asked some important questions including, ‘do we need a standard for leadership? In the same way that we have a standard for registration, chartered teacher and headship?’ He also asked how we, as school leaders, ‘could expand on the philosophy of the current induction process for newly qualified teachers’.

The first speaker of the day was Ellen Moir from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ellen talked passionately and enthusiastically about the importance of investing in the development of early leaders. Over the last 12 years she has helped build a New Teacher Centre at the University which provides a programme of support for new teachers after they have finished their equivalent of a PGDE. As part of this programme ‘exemplar’ teachers a ‘borrowed’ by the New Teacher Centre on a three year secondment to help coach and mentor Newly Qualified Teachers. As part of their own professional development the mentors meet up every week to discuss their NQT’s progress, to swap ideas, collaborate and to build a real learning community. I was really interested in Ellen’s presentation and I hope to be able to use some of the model that they have created at the New Teachers Centre to develop some of my own ideas to help teachers fairly new to the experience gain ‘accelerated experience’.

After Coffee the members of the National CPD Team spoke about one of the alternative routes to the Standard for Headship that is being developed within Scotland. The presentation included some background on the pilot and then a demonstration of a coach working with two of the participants currently participating in the pilot programme.

After lunch and some process group work Eddie Broadley, former Headteacher and now Area Advisor for Learning and Teaching Scotland spoke to the conference about what it was like to be a Headteacher in the Scottish Highlands. Eddie gave a very honest and humorous account on the highs and lows of headship with particular reference to the rural isolation that you can experience in some areas of Scotland. He had a couple of clear messages for the audience. The first was that as professional we need to, ‘expand and develop the reality of the curriculum as well as just the theory.’ The second was, ‘as leaders you need to be the Satellite Navigation for the school by a having a clear vision of where you have been and where you are going.’

Penny Browning, a Chartered Teacher from, AbbyhillPrimary School in Edinburgh was the last speaker of the day. Penny believes that leadership is an integrated part of the Chartered Teacher programme and that ‘all true’ Chartered Teachers will choose to lead even if it is not at a whole school level. Penny made some really interesting points and at a time when the whole of the Chartered Teacher process is under review I hope that the review panel have consulted with people like Penny on the future of the award and standard in Scotland.

Under cloudless Edinburgh skies almost 300 chartered teachers made their way to the second annual national Chartered Teacher conference. Edinburgh’s finest fire brigade even turned up – summoned by a false fire alarm! At least they could be confident it wasn’t one of the fourth years this time.

The conference was opened in typically witty and thought-provoking style by Walter Humes, Research Professor in Education at the University of Paisley, clearly enjoying