Get the lates news and updates from CPDLead here in the January newsletter.
If you are a leader of CPD in your setting and aren’t yet a member of CPDLead – what are you waiting for?! Have a look at our online community and sign up – it’s simple and it’s free! http://bit.ly/cpdlead3
Teach First Ofsted Report Summary FINAL26132_1375[1]
Attached you will find a summary of the OFSTED report into Teach First in England.
In the report Ofsted reported that “Teach First is very successful in meeting its commitment to address educational disadvantage”. It describes Teach First participants as “exceptional” with many on their way to being inspirational teachers in their first year. The training they receive was found to be “consistently high quality” while the leadership and management of the organisation was “very strong”. Ofsted highlights the way Teach First participants work effectively in collaboration with other colleagues and teachers in their schools.The report also notes that Teach First’s retention is “exceptionally high” and “significantly above the national average”, while noting it recruits a “diverse cohort with a high proportion nationally of participants from a wide range of minority ethnic backgrounds”.
Currently Teach First has no base in Scotland, although I understand they are in negotiation with a Scottish University to seek a programme which would allow registration for those teachers who have completed their training on the programme. Regardless of the outcome of this, it is worth considering those elements which seem to have been most successful, particularly in relation to the Donaldson Report and to our national purpose to improve attainment for children and young people in disadvantaged communities.
CPDStepin (the national community for supply teachers on Glow) is hosting a major online event for educators in Scotland in the week beginning 13th June. Each evening at 7pm, we will feature a CPDMeet on the theme of Additional Support for Learning:
All educators with a Glow username and password are very welcome. For more details and sign-up, please see the CPDStepin Summer Summit on Glow
A great turn out at UWS Ayr Campus for TeachMeet Ayrshire, with almost 40 people from across the full range of the education sector gathering to share ideas and experiences.
The event was organised largely by Val Adam & Karen Muir, who had only been to one TeachMeet previously, with great support from Catherine Miller and Morag Giblin from UWS. Bill Boyd was our compere for the evening and numerous others stepped in to lend a hand to make the evening a success.
The event was generously sponsored by a number of organisations, providing catering, raffle prizes and free trials of their products. Sponsor details on the wiki .
Despite a few technical problems much of the proceedings was streamed to the web, some of which was recorded and can be viewed at - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tmayr
In all there were 9 presentations dealing with topics as wide ranging as -
In addition, there were three round-table discussions on -
It is hoped that some of those who attended will use this posterous site to add their thoughts on the night.
Email tmayr@posterous.com with the title of your post in the subject line and your post in the message field of the email.
This is a call to bloggers to promote their blog on CPDCentral
I watched an interesting thought-piece from Dean Shareski (aka @shareski on Twitter) which got me thinking that ‘keeping our stuff’ to ourselves runs counter to calling ourselves educators (You can see the thought-piece on CPDCentral – CPDShort 8 or on the K-12 online educator site)
Many CPDCentral members have already taken up the challenge of sharing using the I-share area. However, like Dean, many Scottish educators also share on a regular basis using their blogs. Rather than ask these colleagues to share again on I-share, we have developed an area for showcasing these educators in CPDCentral (http://bit.ly/cpdcbloggers). A ‘slideshow’ of the latest posts can also be seen on the main I-share page.
So if your blog is not featured, let’s hear from you and give all CPDCentral members the benefit of your sharing. Here’s how:
PS – if you’re new to the world of educational blogging and want to find out more, try tackling CPDChallenge 9 set by Andrew Brown
Carpe Diem School in Yuma, Arizona is one of a new type of “Bricks and Clicks” school. In this article in the Harvard Education Letter, Brigid Schulte describes a very different educational experience on offer to students. They are offered a combination of the best face-to-face teaching and cutting-edge online curriculum. Results are impressive with the school being designated as “highly performing”.
The hybrids began to develop in the States after the US Department of Education released a meta-analysis of on-line learning that seemed to confirm that a blend of face-to-face teacher time and on-line curriculum produced better outcomes than either strategy on its own.
Also worth checking out is the Top Ten Web Tools for Education by Dave Saltman – “In the quest to work smarter, not harder, teachers are flocking to an ever-expanding galaxy of web-based tools for help with everything from classroom manage- ment to classroom discussions . . . . “
Thanks to all for who signed up to take part in CPD Question Time later today. It starts at 2pm and will finish no later than 3.15pm.
Participating online?
The whole event will be streamed live and can be accessed from both Glow and the wiki page. If you want to make a comment you can either use the Glowchat tool or Twitter using the hashtag #cpdqt. Alan Hamilton of the Glow Team has kindly agreed to facilitate the online contributions.
Participating in person?
CPDQT takes place in LTScotland offices in the Optima building, Robertson Street, Glasgow. Please make your way directly to Floor 7. Sign-in facilities, tea and coffee will be available from 1.30pm onwards.
Margaret and the National CPD Team would be delighted if you could stay on afterwards for a light snack, refreshments and a chat.
Richard Jennings, Head of Education at East Lothian Council reviews the community vehicles devised by groups at the conference to bring a focus to their leadership agenda.
Friday 3rd September 2010
If you haven’t yet booked up for this year’s annual conference, then don’t delay. The theme is how we can think differently to achieve success for Curriculum for Excellence, and the reflections will be aided by a wide range of speakers such as Keith Brown, Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning, Jim Scott, headteacher of Perth High School, Detective Inspector Linda Borland of the Violence Reduction Unit, Irene Whitford a teacher from Kirkliston Primary school and many more.
Places at £80 each can be reserved by contacting Ruth on 0131 474 9360 or ruth@cosla.gov.uk
TeachMeet is entering its fifth year and the unconference for teachers, by teachers has helped hundreds – maybe thousands, in fact – to try out something new, alter the way they already teach and learn, join a community of innovative educators or completely transform their way of working.
The hope was that the model would spread. It has, but as those who have created and helped pull TeachMeet together over the past four years, we want to see it spread further, deeper and with increasing quality of input from practitioners. This post outlines how we think we might manage this. This is the beginnings of a conversation with those who care about TeachMeet. Add your views in the form of any blog post or comment or tweet – tag it #tmfuture
What are the goals of TeachMeet?
TeachMeet was originally designed to:
Over the years, these ‘rules’ have altered, leading to some great innovations, others less so. The answer to “What is a TeachMeet?” has become a myriad of meanings, some pretty far off the original goals. We need to help and support people to organise, run and contribute to events that build on previous ones. We need to make TeachMeet as accessible to newbies as it was in 2005. We need TeachMeet to once more find its focus.
Supporting the “infectiousness” of TeachMeets
A means to make TeachMeet more sustainable, easier to use for sponsors and organisers, and have the ability to do something spectacular
TeachMeet is owned by the community that shape it – but there needs to be a body to manage sponsorship and sponsors, and provide support for new organisers so that they maintain the TeachMeet goals. We assume that if someone is organising a ‘TeachMeet’ they would like to emulate the success of those popular early TeachMeets, and better-supported national conference ones (e.g. SLF and BETT).
What would support from the TeachMeet body look like?
But, above all, TeachMeet is reaching a point of saturation in the UK – things are going really well in terms of enthusing teachers about their own learning. We have a great opportunity to carry over a small proportion of the sponsorship and contributions towards creating a TeachMeet culture in countries where teacher professional development in this way is still blocked by barriers physical, financial or cultural. This is just one idea, harboured for a long time but unable to realise in the current setup.
This body can take the form of:
As we take things forward we invite you to contribute your ideas and thoughts to make things work smoothly. We want you to comment, probe and make your own suggestions before the end of June, using the tag #tmfuture
Blog feed
