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 Scottish Government is committed to producing a technologies for learning strategy. Find out more here: Technologies for Learning Strategy
CPD Network Meeting 3 November
A meeting of the CPD Network took place on November 3rd and focussed on the themes of leadership and PRD. It was important for us to emphasise the connection between leadership and PRD. This was an interactive day with the focus on determining the principles which underpin each theme.
The day finished with participants identifying an idea or initiative which they will take forward at local authority level. It is our intention at our next Network meeting for our colleagues to reflect on action taken and the impact of this at local level.
Headteacher CPD
At a recent event in North Ayrshire we presented a CPD opportunity for headteachers based on the key features of Flexible Route to Headship. This opportunity involved engagement with authority officials with the aim of ensuring sustainability of the approach beyond this one day. Themes within the programme will now be taken forward at local level through the partnership of local officials and headteachers.
We agreed to concentrate on 4 key themes:
• Leadership styles
• Coaching as a leadership style
• Emotional intelligence
• Impact of the professional actions of the headteacher
From this interactive experience, each headteacher has identified an idea or intention which they will take forward in their own school. During February 2011 we will revisit this intention with the headteachers to consider the impact of their actions.
Hoo tae luik guid glaikit: Stirling Management Centre 18th/19th November
Con Morris orchestrated a two day workshop for over 30 people from local authorities and other organisations from across Scotland. Funding for the event was offered by LTS Glow Development team and development officers Katie Barrowman, Sarah Burton and Alan Hamilton and Charlie Love provided hands on support during the intensive couple of days in Stirling where online communities were given a makeover. That explains the “How to look Good” bit, the “Glaikit” bit has still got some folks wondering. However, the creativity and inventiveness that were generated over the two days spilled over into Twitter and onto the Glow pages for the event and resulted in many intentions being shared which will be revisited before the recall days in March.
Always keen to capitalise on events, the National CPD team made good use of the visit in October to Scotland of leading Australian educator Greg Whitby to these shores. With a little help from friends John Connell and Frank Crawford and Laurie O’Donnell, who had organised Greg’s visit, we managed to put together a diverse panel of speakers who could all contribute to the idea of making system-wide change happen in education. What followed was a fascinating discussion with the panel being challenged by some really big questions.
So It happened, over 70 folk attended in person and on online, it was great and Nick Hood summarised the event brilliantly on his blog. Worth a read! Look out for CPDQT2 early in 2011.
Managing Scotland’s Schools
This was a very interesting opportunity organised by Holyrood magazine to listen and reflect on options around how schools might be governed in future. From a variety of speakers a few key themes emerged:
• the crucial role of the headteacher
• support for headteachers as central in any change
• the energy potential of autonomous schools
• the real merit in exploring cluster and community networks of school
• On CPDStepin, among the new features Anne McGhee has introduced is a mentoring programme. If your supply teachers don’t have access to this important source of CPD, then please drop us a line stepin@ltscotland.org.uk
• On CPDNet, all the sharing from the 3rd November session is on the Latest Event section including videos of Bob’s and Jim’s session, pictures and summaries of the ‘dot voting’ on PRD
• On CPDChallenge in the Glaikit section, you can see lots of interest if you are looking to build your CPD communities on Glow. For example, take a look at the range of techniques highlighted in the Samples book and see how all participants declared their learning intentions.
CPDMeet
Have you taken part in a CPDMeet yet? Lots of colleagues have, and you can check out some of them on CPDCentral. If you would like to offer a CPDMeet, or know someone who would, or if you ghave a great idea for one, then contact Catriona at Catriona.oates@cosla.gov.uk
The initiative aimed at enhancing the quality of PRD for staff in schools is entering its second phase, now that the results of the online survey are available for most authorities. Almost 900 school staff representing 8 authorities have now completed the survey and the results reveal markedly different trends from one authority to another. This information will be used to identify priorities for action.
Encouragingly, the survey shows that there is some really good practice in schools and that council-wide policies and procedures are generally fit for purpose. Several councils have developed their own equivalent of CPDReflect, giving staff a sound structure for self-evaluation, linked to authority CPD programmes and personal CPD records. However, of those teachers completing the survey, 35% had not had a PRD meeting in the last year and, of those who did, 25% did not maintain a CPD record. This could be described as a ‘cup more than half full’ situation, and as such it’s good news, but the challenge is to engage all school staff in taking responsibility for their own professional learning.
Please contact us if you know of any schools where PRD is at the core of professional learning. It is important that we celebrate the good practice that exists as well as identifying and addressing the issues: bob.cook@cosla.gov.ukcatriona.oates@cosla.gov.uk
Building Communities of Practice
• Argyll & Bute – Margaret Orr has been developing leadership event for Early Years Management team’
• In West Dunbarton, she has met with the QIO team to discuss Learning Rounds. A follow up session with secondary headteachers is planned for next term
• In East Ayrshire, Margaret has led an initial session to plan LR initiative in the SEN sector
• And in Edinburgh City she led a seminar on Building Capacity with 50 senior and middle managers from the SEN sector
Distributed Leadership
We are working with Argyll & Bute Early Years Team as they consider their CPD needs in relation to their revised structure. The key theme will be a focus on distributed leadership within a multi-disciplinary team.
Learning Rounds
The team continues to explore the potential of Learning Rounds in all sectors and in the context of multi-agency working . Edinburgh City is looking at its application in Children & Families Centres and East Ayrshire is exploring its use in an inclusionist setting in mainstream secondary for additional support needs. The CPD Team will be hosting a seminar on the theme of “Learning Rounds: application to multi-agency professional development” in mid January and the outcome will be shared on the blog and in a future newsletter.
Leadership – Building Capacity in the SEN Sector
The team facilitated and led a seminar which involved headteachers, depute head teachers and principal teachers from all the special schools and services in Edinburgh City. This was an innovative approach from the authority which saw senior and middle managers having the oppoprtunity to reflect on their roles and related CPD needs to ensure a robust sector which effectively delivers the requirements of CfE : ASL legislation and GIR. More information is available on the CPD Team blog.
Bits and bobs
Summer School 2010 recall days have been taking place across the country and have been attended by August participants and members of the CPD Team. Some interesting practice has emerged from follow up activity at local authority level. This will be reported in the next edition of CPDNews.
It is fair to say that the noticeboards at Stirling Management Centre on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th November weren’t displaying their usual lists of meetings. Yes, Scotlands’ Colleges were there, NAR people were there along with a few more seasoned regulars but one event stood out from the others: Hoo tae luik guid glaikit. This was a two day creative hothouse to give CPD leaders and managers from local authorities the opportunity to “makeover” their online communities, with the help of the National CPD team and Glow development officers.
Con Morris orchestrated the session, outlining in his introduction the drivers behind the “Glaikit” concept: not just tightening purse-strings but also the massive potential there is in Glow as learning and sharing platform, and how having it brings a responsibility to use it for sharing at every level especially nationally.
Anna Rossvoll from Aberdeenshire gave a local authority perspective on Glow communities which then lead into groups establishing their priorities and principles for online communities , before getting down to some practical work, expertly supported by the Glow development officers, Katie Barrowman, Sarah Burton, Alan Hamilton,Charlie Love, and of course each other!
As the day evolved, a really useful “makeover sample book” started filling up with useful short “how – to guides” on using web parts in Glow. A thought-provoking discussion on levels of participation online – the #Glaikit Lurkers Debate began to probe our understandings and beliefs on communities, sharing, participation and responsibility( collegiality), and spilled over into Twitter, where some people were following our hashtag with interest and joined the debate.
Progress was shared via the trusted puggy machine at the end of Friday afternoon, and before departure people were invited to share their intentions for their communities in the dedicated glaikit i-share area, which will be revisited.
Interesting day spent with lots of familiar faces at the John McIntyre Centre at Pollock Halls in Edinburgh talking about the options around the governance of our schools.
Keir Bloomer of Tapestry set us off by suggesting that there was a strong case now for national funding for education, and that we needed to consider whether we should be accessing funding from beyond our current system. He argued that we needed to review accountability and policy systems to give schools more autonomy from local authorities.
This view was challenged by Ken Greer (Executive Director of Education in Fife) who believes that there are enough freedoms already present in the system and that changes to school governance structures will not of themselves bring the necessary cultural change.
In a packed day we also heard from Mike Russell, Peter Peacock MSP, Professor Richard Kerley of QMUC and Professor Jouni Valijarvi of the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. Ken Cunningham and Greg Demspster both spoke, as did Eileen Prior, Executive Director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council.
And still they came. We heard from Karen Whitefield MSP, Councillor Paul McLennan of East Lothian, Ben Thomson of Reform Scotland, John Stodter of ADES and Tom Hamilton of the GTCS. The final sessions were led by Bill Maxwell of HMIE and Chris Montacute who is a Director of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust in England.
So no shortage of views; some of them pretty controversial. A few key themes emerged for me:
The role of headteachers is acknowledged as central, and yet the expectations of heads is changing significantly. How do we support and build the capacity of heads to meet the challenges that are emerging?
Bill Maxwell spoke of “more dynamic, innovative schools energised by autonomy” and the need to see more “system leaders” at different levels of our education service. These are big challenges for us in CPDLand.
For me the complexity and diversity of school management systems in England as described by Chris Montacute seemed to be more about placating middle class parents, and meeting political objectives, than about improving the educational experience of children and young people. How can we do better as our systems begin to change?
Professor Kerley gave us an overview of the options for school management that could be considered. He also, very helpfully, outlined some of the consequences that might result. The balance between school autonomy, local government accountability and national policy makers was reflected on by many of the speakers but with no consensus in sight, other than a fairly general view that there was real merit in exploring cluster and community networks of schools, what Ken Greer called “a confederacy of leadership”.
Where does this debate go now? These are significant issues for every educator and we need to engage in mature conversations about them.
18th and 19th November sees another important stepping-stone in our online CPD project, CPDScotland. In partnership with the National CPD Team, the Glow Team are offering a 2 day event for colleagues on the CPD Network. The aim of the event is to improve the CPD communities on Glow. It will take the format of a ‘Glow makeover’ of our CPD communities, hence the name ‘Hoo Tae Luik Guid Glaikit’!
(Apologies to our international audience. The title of the event is a play on the name of a well-known UK TV show and one of my favourite Scots words, glaikit!)
The event is being attended by a range of CPD leaders from local authorities and national organisations and will be supported by Catriona and myself from the CPD team alongside Katie, Sarah, Alan and Charlie from LTScotland.
In ‘making over’ our respective communities, we intend to focus on some key questions:
how do we encourage educators to support each others’ learning?
how do we make the most of the Glow platform and directory of colleagues for this collegiate work?
what is the role of the CPD leader in an online CPD community?
Being a makeover event, we will all be working on a ‘sample book’ which will be used to help inspire changes. Feel free to have an initial perusal or if you have a killer CPD webpart for Glow, please add!
As the content of the 2 days is finalised, I am sure there will be some opportunities to take part remotely. The hashtag for the event is #glaikit which we will use to keep folk informed and I will update this blog post as more details become available.
Despite a wild and windy day in North Ayrshire , Jim Keegans and I enjoyed a very warm sesssion with primary head teacher colleagues on the 28 October. At the invitation of Gary Johnstone , QIM we shared some thinking and prompted discussion on the appropriateness of a coaching approach to support the PRD process. Colleagues were very participative and the reflections and observations which emanated from the group activities and discussions provided very interesting feedback for the authority and enhanced our own thinking on these topical themes .
Edinburgh City organised a very innovative CPD experience for head teachers , deputes and principal teachers on the 5 November . For the first time the senior management teams were given the opportunity to reflect on the strengths of the sector as a whole and to identify how, collegiately, they could continue to develop capacity within and across the specialist areas to deliver on Curriculum for Excellence. It was my pleasure and privilege to facillitate the session. The richness of the discussions and the enhanced awareness which colleagues gleaned from the opportunity provided immediate professional development which has sown the seeds for ongoing collaboration on a system wide level.
The challenges facing school and service leaders is significant but the realisation that there is a shared agenda and the opportunity to explore solutions with colleagues makes it less daunting !
At a recent national conference in Inverness organised by Storlann, Mary MacMillan and I challenged the attendees to organise a series of CPDMeets for Gaelic educators. It looks like the ball has started rolling. The remainder of this post is from Mary
Using ICT to Develop Gaelic Language
On the 8th November at 4.14pm Kay Marie MacInnes and Anne Hughes will share how they develop Gaelic language using different types of technology. Kay Marie and Anne teach in Mount Cameron Primary School in South Lanarkshire. The event will be delivered in Gaelic.
CPDMeet 16 features an amazing, interdisciplinary learning project led by Angela McEwen of Media Matters. I met Angela at the Scottish Learning Festival and we got to talking about Glow. I was very impressed when she told me about her project in which renowned Scots poet Liz Lochhead used Glow to help students write poems in their English lessons. When Angela added that Art & Design students did the illustrations and Business Education arranged for their publication and sale through Amazon, I knew it just had to be the subject of a CPDMeet!
I was even more delighted when Angela offered her services for this CPDMeet pro bono. Here are the details:
Blog feed
