Following on from the very well received “Learning from each other” event, the team has been consulting with colleagues from a range of agencies and stakeholders on the potential of extending the Learning Rounds model to involve partners in collegiate CPD activity. The focus would be to consider how best to develop partnership working to deliver on the expectations within CfE, ASL,GIR and MCMC. As always the observations will take place within a learning environment which could be early years, special or mainstream and the principles which underpin the LR approach would equally apply.
The team is hosting a seminar on the 19th January which will explore the potential of the model with a view to trialling it during January and February of next year.
If this is of interest to you we would love to have you on board ! Please get in touch margaret0@cosla.gov.uk
The National CPD Team in partnership with colleagues from Peel Primary and Irvine Royal Academy led a “full house” session at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival on the real life world of Learning Rounds. Margaret Orr gave an overview of the principles and purpose of Learning Rounds but the key inputs came from Lorraine and Kenny at Peel Primary and Stirling from Irvine Royal Academy with their schools’ stories.
Their inputs which can be viewed on link were very positively received and prompted a question and answer session . It was clear that attendees valued the insight from colleagues who had “walked the talk”.
The video footage will also be featured on the Learning Rounds Community of Practice site which will be launched in the near future. If you are engaged in Learning Rounds or considering it for the future your involvement in the CoP would be very welcome.
On September 3rd this year, educators from schools, centres, local authorities, national organisations and colleges came together for this year’s SELMAS Leadership Conference. The theme was: “Curriculum for Excellence: thinking differently to achieve success”, and as ever the delegates came to be challenged, stimulated and entertained by a range of speakers and lots of discussion and shared activities.
We were delighted that the Keith Brown MSP, Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning started off our conference. The keynote address was given by Richard Jennings, newly appointed Head of education in East Lothian who lead a lively, interactive session on Community Vehicles, offering one strategy to get people thinking about core values and the moral purpose of their work.
Keen as ever to hear practitioner voices, we then heard from four colleagues who are leading innovation within their own workplace. Jim Scott the headteacher of Perth High School, Irene Whitford, a teacher from Kirkliston Primary School. Here is Irene giving us a great insight into the Learning Rounds Experience
Elaine McGuire the head of the Pre-5 Centre in Shortlees Primary School and Lena Gray, the head of Policy and New Products at SQA, each described an aspect of their current practice, and delegates were invited to offer questions and comments. You can link to and download the brochure which Lena mentioned here. You can see the impact of these brief presentations in the feedback given by delegates.
The afternoon began with a session led by Alison Drever of Learning and Teaching Scotland. The “Skunkworks” process, in essence, is about innovative answers to important questions. At the conference delegates were asked to step outside the realms of education to consider CfE from a different perspective. This culminated in a CfE think differently challenge which asked them to become the Google search engine and consider what the top hits might be if we typed ‘CfE, think differently’ into the search box.
The conference ended with a moving, challenging and thought-provoking presentation by Linda Borland, a Detective Inspector in the Violence Reduction unit, who told us David’s story. The conference were left with a clear understanding of the need to work differently, individually and collaboratively to offer better life chances to young people like David, and his son.
Feedback from delegates, who were asked to identify one insight, one idea, one intention or one piece of interesting practice relevant to the issues discussed at the conference can be viewed below.
Journalist Douglas Blane describes his exeperience of observing a Learning Rounds in this week’s TESS. Six teachers, a QIO and Margaret Orr from our team spent a day at St Winnings Primary School in North Ayrshire observing and discussing – always using the descriptive voice of course.
The 3 day event in Birmingham had again as its theme “Seizing Success”. The delegates came from across the UK and abroad and represented colleagues from evey sphere of education and partner agencies. The highlights of the conference can be sourced on the National College website and may give you food for thought on aspects of leadership and the challenges which the new financial orbit present to us all but school and service leaders in particular. There was a specific focus on the need for heightened collegiality in the world of CPD and it was heartening to be able to see that much of the collaborative work between the CPD Team , local authorities and schools ( on-line connections CPDFind /CPDReflect/GLOW ; FRH and Learning Rounds)chimes with the latest educational thinking and delivers it in an accessible and meaningful way.
As all our regular readers know, for the last eighteen months or so, the CPD team has been working with colleagues from SCSSA to develop this thing called Learning Rounds (LRs).
Like many good ideas, LRs started with a conversation inspired by the visit of Professor Richard Elmore of Harvard University to Scotland in 2006 (part of the Scottish Government/CPD Team’s International Thought Leaders programme.) Some themes began to emerge:
could we find ways to improve learning and teaching by changing the ways we share classroom experiences?
could this then give us a better understanding of the ways in which systems (school systems and authority systems) could be improved to realise the ambition of CfE?
can we find strategies which help the development of teacher learning communities that grow naturally from teacher teams and are wholly owned and directed by teachers?
The LRs team has spent the intervening period challenging our own thinking and that of others by developing a set of resources and a ‘methodology’ that have proved to be of real interest to educators at every level of the system.
Last Thursday, we shared our learning with a group of about 80 educators from more than half of the local authorities.
We described the principles that define the LRs work, and the some of the myriad of ways in which colleagues have picked up the ideas and shaped them to the needs of their own learning community. We invited the delegates to test some of the resources and methods that have evolved over the last year or so. We invited some of the teachers, local authority officers and champions to describe the ways in which LRs has helped them to drive change in their individual contexts. We shared some aspirations for how LRs might develop in the months ahead and together we considered the challenges and opportunities that are emerging.
At the end of a full, challenging day delegates reported that they had gained a better understanding of what LRs is, had a detailed guide for how to organise a LRs in teacher learning teams, school or authorities, and had shared some insights into why they might wish to do this. They also had a full pack of resources, training materials, bibliography, references, etc to take back to their workplace. It was a great day!
Related links
If you are interested in finding out more about Learning Rounds, why not look at the recording of a CPDMeet led by Margaret Orr of our team
Following the session on Learning Rounds at the April STEC conference I was invited to a meeting of the Learning Development Group at James Watt College to discuss the potentail of the approach within the FE setting. As with a previous opportunity at Anniesland College there was as much learning for me as there was for the colleagues who were considering the approach., which seems to chime very well with the principles of engagement already agreed by the group.
The discussion was very informative and opened up new avenues re particpation with the recognition that adult students had as much of a right to particpate as did school age pupils .
Given that the college has 850 staff it underlines the need to view Learning Rounds as an ongoing collegiate activity rather than a one off event for a few interested colleagues.
The CPD team look s forward with interest to hear of on going developments !
Around 500 leaders attended the Edinburgh Learning Festival last Friday, with a second event targetted at parents on the Saturday.
Each of the clusters in the city were represented in the Education village, and I was delighted to see the celebration by Kirkliston PS of their engagement with Learning Rounds.
David Cameron was at his passionate best, and told us that in terms of CfE, “ It’s not the challenges that got big, it’s our ambitions that got small”. He said that, “We need to give young people a compass for the future. It’s up to them to draw the map. “
George Smuga took delegates through the curricular models that are emerging nationally, and I chose “Doing the Right Thing; Knowing the Right Thing to Do” as my theme. I suggested that at individual, school and system level there was no shortage of people working hard to achieve the best they can for children and young people, but, despite a mountain of advice (30,000 pages of CfE advice on LTS website according to David Cameron), sometimes it’s very hard to identify whether what we’re doing is indeed the right thing. This of course led me on to Learning Rounds.
The target audience for this event is small teams (3/4) from authorities who are interested in learning more about the potential of Learning Rounds to offer system-wide change in the context of Curriculum for Excellence. A team might be made up from authority staff and/or school-based staff.
Each participant will leave with a paper copy of the Learning Rounds Toolkit and a datastick with suggested powerpoint presentations for briefing, training, etc
Intended outcomes:
Resources and expertise required to use Learning Rounds as a vehicle for system change in schools and authorities are shared
The potential of Learning Rounds as the basis for a professional learning community is explored
The implications of the model as a driver of systemic and collegiate change is explored
Participants record a high quality personal learning experience with the potential to change practice
Contact ruth@cosla.gov.uk as soon as possible, and no later than May 19th, if you want to send a team
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Around 500 leaders attended the Edinburgh Learning Festival last Friday, with a second event targetted at parents on the Saturday.