CPD Team

I spent today with Aidan Melling of NCSL  (the National College for School Leadership) at their very impressive Nottingham centre. The reason for getting together was sharing where we are with online CPD.

NCSL has an impressive online CPD pedigree going back to the Talking Heads online community. Their website (www.ncsl.org.uk) gets 100,000 plus visitors per month and hosts a variety of CPD and leadership resources, tools and programmes. Much of it is on public view but some of it is only available if you are subscribed to one of their own programmes.

Available to all (follow the links and see if you are as impressed as I am!)

Information on their blended programmes for:

• Mid-level leaders, aspiring, new and experienced headteachers and school business managers
• An impressive research publications area featuring works by a wide variety of experts (some of them weel-kent in Scotland like Alma Harris!)
• Stand-alone sets of resources on subjects like succession planning, leadership where Every Child Matters, on safer recruitment and a smashing e-learning facilitation toolkit (this one is particularly timely for all of us planning professional communities on Glow!)

Other resources made available through NCSL Learning Gateway to registered users are equally interesting, including:

• a 360 degree diagnostic tool which guides participants to tailor NCSL programmes appropriately
• a Virtual School where you get to make leadership decisions (or not!) and see their effects
• Talk2Learn (a Talking Heads type forum but no longer restricted to just head teachers)
• a Leadership Library with a wide range of resources from Harvard Business School and Ashridge Virtual Learning resource centre

As with the visit to the Highland Council, I intend to make sure at least some of these resources are captured on CPDFind.

In return, I shared with Aidan our work in Scotland on CPDScotland,  CPDFind,  CPDReflect and Glow.