CPD Team

Warmest congratulations to all of the successful children, young people, teachers and schools who attended the Scottish Education Awards in Glasgow last Friday. It was an unrelentingly positive experience with butterflies to welcome us, dancers to entertain us, and an X-Factor finalist to sing to us.

Positive messages were everywhere. It was a wonderful celebration.

Don’t miss out – get your nominations in for next year just as soon as the invitation is made!

This is a recording of  a CPDMeet held on Friday June 18th, 2010. It features a presentation by Curriculum for Excellence with John McCann (Director of Next Practice in Scotland’s Colleges) with contributions by David Cameron (leading educational consultant). John’s message is powerfully simple; Scotland’s Colleges have been on the CfE journey already (eg from external to internal assessment) so why not invite them into the CPD conversations?

You can get more information, including links to other related material on the CPDMeet 10 Glow page

CPDMeets are run regularly on Glow. More information on the CPDAnswers blog post; What is a CPDMeet?

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.

Read the full article here.

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6048112

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.

The Scottish Government’s Summer School on Educational Leadership is now in its 4^th year.

From August 4^th to 6^th of this year, teams from local authorities and national organisations will be addressing the issue of System-wide change in the context of Curriculum for Excellence.

 Participating teams will be supported, not to say challenged, by radical thinkers and doers in the area of leadership:

• John Seddon of Vanguard, who help organisations change from ‘command and control’ to ‘systems-thinking’ leadership
• Mick Waters of the Curriculum Foundation. This not-for-profit organisation’s starting point is the conviction that there is a universal core at the heart of every successful curriculum
• David Jackson and Denis Mongon of the Innovations Unit, a not-for-profit organisation who support the strategic leadership of change
• David Hopkins of Institute of Education, University of London

The National CPD Team will be opening up parts of the 3-day event on Glow using Glowmeet and the CPDLead professional community on Glow. Please feel free to express an interest in this unique event on Glow.

You will be contacted with more details in July. 

• More details on the CPDFind opportunity – The Summer School on Glow
• You can see highlights from the previous 3 Summer Schools on the Summer School website

This is a guest post from John McCann, Director of Next Practice at Scotland’s Colleges

I have heard it called a form of insanity.  That well known phenomenon of repeating the same action while expecting different consequences.  This is in contrast to life’s experiences which suggests strongly that if you do the same thing again it will, indeed, have the same result.

 My first memory of this phenomenon came as I developed computer programming skills.  Programs require to be submitted to a computer for translation according to a very strict set of rules.  Normally the result of submission was an extensive list of those rules which had been broken.  I have to admit that on more than one occasion, I resubmitted.  There was always hope – maybe the computer wasn’t paying attention the first time; maybe it was having a bad day; maybe the rules would be relaxed; maybe …… 

I have also to admit that on every occasion, the result was the same.  Surprising that – same action, same consequence. 

In my analysis, I have come to the conclusion that this arises through pain-seeking behaviour which seems particularly prevalent in Celtic communities.  I have come across it throughout my career.  In staff workrooms, for example, where learning from experience, particularly of others, would be regarded as a denial-of-pain situation to be avoided.  We have a wonderful collection of reasons not to share.  Pain-Seeking-through-Ignoring-Experiences-Syndrome may be our preferred cultural state.  I will readily admit to being a sufferer and that, apparently, is the first stage in finding a cure.

I was reminded of this phenomenon preparing for a presentation on ‘Colleges and Quality’ to the implementation partnership of Curriculum for Excellence.  It was a welcome opportunity.

I was able to describe to the audience a time and a place where colleges used to be.  When the time scale for changing qualifications could be measured in geological time; when teacher centred approaches were prevalent; when the culture was a dependent one and where the needs of external assessment dominated everything.  I suggested that members of the audience might recognise such a world in their own space.  Judging by the murmurings, it seemed to be the case.

I described a current world where colleges, according to HMIe, have comprehensive quality assurance and improvement systems that enhance the learner experience.  And that there were ‘no systemic weaknesses’ in the sector.  I suggested that seemed to be a good place to be and the murmurings suggested agreement.

Some of the  lessons in that journey were outlined – moderation and quality assurance to be regarded as part of a total quality system, assessment/verification policy with clear aims, quality grounded on professional dialogue, a developmental internal audit regime, retaining the core purpose of improvement and so on.  Learning from colleges made available to the system.

We are all aware of the challenges facing schools in taking Curriculum for Excellence forward and, through his TES articles, Don Ledingham has identified the potential for learning from colleges.  College experience and interests are well represented in Curriculum for Excellence implementation structures.  It feels there is measure of sanity there.

However, we need to work harder.  The public funding pressures are such that we need to use ALL the resources of the system.  We need to make sure that learning from one part of the system impacts upon another.  We need to move so that any part of the system is receptive to learning from another.  That would be a real gain of Curriculum for Excellence and help deliver what Graeme Hyslop has described as the first comprehensive learning system in Europe. 

In these difficult times, Pain-Seeking-through-Ignoring-Experiences Syndrome is looking more than a little indulgent.  Let’s aim for systems sanity.

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

What is a Learning Round?

Delighted to give you early notice of this year’s SELMAS event. The theme will be :

Curriculum for Excellence: Thinking differently to achieve success

Once again we’re hoping for a stimulating, inspiring and dynamic event as we reflect together, renew relationshps and hear some thought-provoking speakers.

We have been oversubscribed in the past so please reserve your place by contacting Ruth@cosla.gov.uk

the cost is £80 per delegate

This post is from Jane Malcolm, The Princess Royal Trust for Carers, who is also a member of our CPDStepin professional community

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers is developing an online Identification Toolkit for Young Carers in Primary Schools in Scotland. The toolkit will help schools to identify and support young carers by providing a variety of resource materials and a framework for education staff to support young carers that encourages collaboration with Young Carers Services.

The aim of the toolkit is to allow:

• younger young carers to feel more comfortable about their caring role because they have been identified and are receiving support.
• young carers to feel less isolated because they realise that other children and young people have caring roles.
• young carers will be aware of support available to them.
• younger carers to feel less stigmatised because of their caring role and feel more comfortable about asking for help.
• education staff to be more skilled in recognising and supporting young carers.

What resources do you think the toolkit needs? Have your say! Browse the Young Carers Toolkit, complete the online survey, add your comments and resources.

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 !