blog. mrstacey. org.uk

I’m pleased to announce that from this term I’ll be working with Portal Training to lead an inset course, from their base in Cardiff, exploring ways to get the most of digital opportunities.

The course I’ll be running is designed to be platform neutral (laptops, tablets, phones of any make and operating system are welcome) and practical. As I’ve said before, what teachers are really short on is the chance to experiment and play so we’re building a hefty dose of that, along with lots of choice to help people find solutions that work in their classrooms.

The first of these is running on 15th March and details are now online, along with a form to book your place.

If you think this sounds like the kind of course that might be of use to you, or to someone you know, please do think about signing up and joining us. And pass the link on!

Following the rant in my last post, which seemed to cause a bit of a stir out on Twitter, there were some great ideas for sharing good practice bouncing around in the Edtechroundup meeting on Sunday night. The podcast will be out shortly and will be well worth listening to if you’ve got an interest in leading or developing CDP / Inset in your school.

I want to leave the theme of inset on a more positive note, so below is an outline for my ‘fantasy inset’ for next years Transition Day, which I’ll be emailing to the key people in school when we return.

Session 1 – Welcome and Keynote (30 mins-ish)

The transition plan – what it is, what’s happened over the last few years, successes (both in terms of projects and impact) and ideas for the future.

Session 2 – Breakouts (1 hour?)

In classrooms, groups of teachers will come together from various schools to discuss practice in their schools. If practical it might be nice to arrange these roughly in subject areas, to allow non core subject teachers to get some ideas about how ‘their’ subjects are taught in the previous / next Key Stage. Guiding questions can be provided, but the chat should be informal and practice-based

Coffee

Session 3 – Show & Tell / Teachmeet – (90 mins?)

Before and during the morning sessions, individuals would be encouraged to put themselves forward to talk about one specific thing they do in their classrooms. It might be a particular technique, use of a particular tool, website, approach anything. Names would be drawn at random and everyone would have up to 5(?) minutes to talk. A projector will be available but Powerpoint will be banned.The idea would be to create a more ‘informal’ atmosphere than is normally the cases at these kind of events.

If you wanted to go v.high tech, questions could be texted during the talk, a few put to the speaker at the end, and the rest posted on a follow up website which could also contain a video or audio recording of each of the talks. However, if this was percieved as a barrier, it could be dropped.

This approach has been used with great sucess at events such as the Scottish Learning Festival and BETT, and at schools such as Rickmandsworth School.

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For my money that would tick all the boxes. Staff would be brought up to date with the ‘big picture’ as it applied to our school, would have time to talk through ideas with colleagues from other schools / key stages, would have a chance to share and learn about good practice and above all have fun in a positive and supportive environment. And the whole thing would be topped off by a really nice lunch in which the food suitable for vegetarians would be clearly identified (!)

Yesterday we had our second annual joint inset with our five link Primary schools. Last year’s was excellent, and we had high hopes for this one. There’s been loads of progress made on both the transition process, and understanding in both Key Stages about how the other works. Sadly, the speakers that had been brought in left a lot to be desired. What follows are some tips for any other potential inset speakers, based on our experience yesterday.

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1. Don’t start by telling us that your presentation might be a bit rushed because you’re going on holiday tomorrow. If something breaks,  I will forgive you, but you’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect your best

2. Don’t tut and get all matronly when people don’t instantly fall silent at your every word. If you can get people ‘buzzing’ about your ideas, this is a good thing. If people are bored by you, it is a message for you to change something. This is basic teaching that I expect from PGCE students. You’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect you to embody the great teaching you apparently don’t think we’re doing

3. Don’t make great claims about the research that your ideas are supposedly based on without actually ever telling us what it is and where we can go and find it. Certainly don’t make sweeping statements like ‘all the research shows’ and then expect me to trust a word you say. I expect my year 7 students to cite their sources.  You’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect you to actually know what you’re talking about, and be able to prove it.

Linked to that

4. Don’t turn up claiming you know about the work we’ve been doing in our cluster group, and then tell us to do a load of things that we’re already doing. Certainly don’t turn up claiming you know about the SMART programme that I helped to write and currently coordinate and then have the audacity to warn us of all the things we might be doing wrong, particularly when we’ve been aware of them, and in many cases directly moved to solve them since we wrote the bloody thing.  You’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect you to be professional, and if you can’t do that, at least extend some professional courtesy to me and my colleagues.

5. Don’t use a crap powerpoint, which it later turns out is exactly the same one you were using back in 2007.  You’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect you to have actually done some preparation for OUR inset day.

6. Don’t tell us that the links to your materials online that you’ve provided no longer work, and instead describe how to find them via another website. Have you not heard of tinyurl? You’re being paid a lot of money to come here , and you’re taking three hours of my time. I expect you to have fixed any problems before you arrive.

7. Don’t provide us with one useful activity, and then ask for all the copies of it back at the end. You’re being paid a lot of money to come here, and taking three hours of my time, and I’d like something useful from that.

8. Don’t fill your presentations with trite soundbites, many of which contradict each other, or your work, or show up how little you understand about current debates in education.

“Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is worthless”. No it’s not. Any curriculum based soely on the transfer of knowledge is out of date, but a world where people didn’t value knowledge? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Teachers perceptions of the ability of their pupils is a barrier” What??? What does that mean? What am I supposed to base my teachings on if I have no perception of the ability of my pupils? Misperceptions of pupils ability – fine, that’s a problem. Teachers not looking to have expectations exceeded – fine, we should always be looking to stretch our pupils, but your statement doesn’t even make sense. You’re being paid a lot of money to come here, and taking three hours of my time, don’t come and stand in front of 100 teachers, and make yourselves look ridiculous with statements like that.

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I deliberately didn’t write this yesterday as I wanted some time to calm down before I did, but writing this I’m still angry at these two women. I did think of naming and shaming, and I still might, but at the moment I won’t. However, if you’re in Wales and planning on booking anyone to come and talk about the skills curriculum and want to check who I’m refering to, please get in tough and I’ll happily tell you.

My suggestion is going to be that we run next years transition inset ourselves. What would be valuable is some time to actually talk to primary colleagues about some of the things they do, some of the issues they face and share some ideas. Perhaps to be capped off with a Teachmeet style event in the afternoon.

There are some fantastic, thought provoking speakers out there, but for every one of them there are too many people like this who not only waste the one resources teachers really don’t have enough of – our time, but also damage the debate that we’re currently trying to have around a skills based curriculum.

Apparently I’m still cross, and I suspect I will be for some time to come.