CPD Team

Leadership of Learning is a key theme of the Learning Rounds programme and the following is a good text if you want to read more about the issue:

What We Know About School Leadership. Nottingham: NCSL

This report presents an overview of what is known about school leadership, drawing together commissioned research and evaluations NCSL has undertaken, the outcomes of practitioner enquiries, seminars and think tanks, as well as literature reviews and work outside England and education. A key feature of the report is that school leaders should ‘generate and sustain discussion about Learning & Teaching’ (p.20).
It can be accessed on http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media-3e7-55-what-we-know-about-school-leadership.pdf.

Jim and Scottish Government colleagues are talking to a number of authorities about the roll-out of the FR pilot. For those of you who are interested you might like to look at the evaluation of the pilot that was conducted jointly by the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge.

If you’d like to know more then feel free to contact Jim or any other member of the team.

 As part of the Learning Rounds, we promised to share with you the resources that are being developed by the LR team to support the project. The first of these are now available on the LR blog.

The first is a simple checklist of the kind of pupil activity that might indicate that they are engaged in learning. The second is some guidance on communication skills which might be helpful when sharing reflection after an observation.

Neither are final or perfect.  They are works in progress and will develop, but colleagues have indicated they’d like early access to them.

If you decide to give them a go, please let us know what you think!

Attached is a draft of the revised Standard and the GTCS would welcome your comments. The draft is focused on exactly what it is that makes the Chartered Teacher Standard distinctive while developing a natural progression and coherence from the Standard for Full Registration. The draft emphasises the fundamental place of the values which underpin the Standard and the leadership qualities and skills expected from and demonstrated by the Chartered Teacher.

Attached are some questions for you to consider and comments should be passed by the 23 February to:  cheryl.loughbrough@gtcs.org.uk

1          Are you in favour of the suggested changes for the Standard for Chartered Teacher? (Please feel free to comment positively or negatively about particular changes)

2          Are there other suggestions you would make for consideration as possible changes?

3          Do you have any general comments you wish to make about the Standard for Chartered Teacher?

 This can be used as a flexible and generalised way of recording an observation on student learning. Want to know more? Here it is – Observation checklist

Over the course of the project, we will be posting resources which have been developed by the Learning Rounds team. Here’s the first of them – Developing communication skills. Enjoy!

The Learning Rounds (LR) pilot, led by the CPD Team and SCSSA, continues to grow and develop. Colleagues from schools in North Ayrshire and Angus have already been involved. You can see an update of our current work in this project by visiting the LR blog.

Over the next few weeks we will begin to publish some materials which are being developed by the LR team. These will cover topics such as classroom obesrvation using the descriptive voice, teacher movement charts, giving and receiving feedback, higher-order learning, etc. You are very welcome to use these if you find them useful, and we would love to hear from you if you do try them in your school or class.

An increasing number of our CPD events (including Building Windmills) require the use of Glow. If you think you don’t have a Glow account, please check the following:

1. there may be one ‘waiting’ for you. Check with your Glow key contact before trying step 2
2. you may have been issued with a guest account by the CPD Team (or other agency). Check your memory banks before trying step 3
3. contact ruth@cosla.gov.uk if all else fails.

Thanks

Andrew Brown of the LTScotland Glow Team will set the ball rolling by asking the question “Can we do CfE without online CPD?” He will demonstrate a range of professional learning using online technology and get the 1st of the collegiate sessions underway.

Colleagues from a range of national organisations such as HMIE, SQA, GTCS and DTS have kindly agreed to share the stage and demo and discuss their existing online CPD provision and their plans for the future. Colleagues taking part are:

• Jean MacMillan from Determined to Succeed
• Douglas McMillan from SQA
• Mairi McAra from GTC Scotland
• Ken Muir and Sally Fulton from HMIE

Each will demonstrate their current online CPD provision, outline their plans/thoughts/expectations for the future and take some time to focus on their role in CPD for CfE. There will be ample time for questions from the floor and Glowmeet. This session will be hosted by Roddy Stuart.