RE – Am I Bothered? 18/6/16

I will be leading a session at the St Alban's RE conference looking at how RE teachers can help themselves. The two key areas that I will focus on are:

• Organising a TeachMeet (particularly for RE teachers)
• Using Social Media positively for CPD

The mantra 'doing it for ourselves' is going to be ever more true as department budgets are slashed and schools simply do not let staff out. Equally the best resources that exist can be those in local community - even in your (often small) department do you share good practice? NATRE can support through their local group network, but maybe you could expand to a humanities TeachMeet in your local area? Could you film and leave a legacy of CPD? (See this from 2013)

Social media has also afforded us previously untapped resources. Could you use to speak to an expert? A faith believer? Colleagues nationally? Can you share via DropBox / GoogleDrive? Work collaboratively? Twitter chats such #rechatuk? Save RE Facebook groups?

My session will look at all of this and much more.

More info <here>

#Michaela - Debating Education (21/11/15)

Another Saturday, another education event... Am I an edu-geek or an edu-loser? Regardless, it was a chance to meet up with my 'edu-Twitter/blogger friends' and share a day of discussion, debate, reflection, beer and curry. 

The day was held at Michaela, a free school that divides the edu-Twitter world (Read about David Didau's visit <here>). It is a shining example of how schools could be or has Katharine Birbalsingh and her neo-trad collection of Teach First-ers got education totally wrong? Perhaps, thankfully, that wasn't on the days agenda. 

Due to a prior engagement (baptism preparation for my son Tommy' forthcoming initiation into all things Catholic), I could only make 3 of the 5 debates, but the trip to Wembley was still well worth it. We were polled in advance, presumably so Bodil (the data cruncher) could see if we changed our minds. The key questions that were to be discussed were:

1. Was Michael Gove a great Education Secretary?
2. Should Ofsted be abolished?
3. Is Sir Ken right? Does traditional education kill creativity?
4. Does mixed ability work?
5. Should character be in the curriculum?

For me, yes / no answers were tricky:
1. Not great, but had a good vision, just maybe poor execution.
2. Only if it is replaced by a better regulatory body.
3. Not really, as I don't agree with his definition of creativity.
4. Maybe in some subjects, but not all?
5. It has to be, but not in separate lessons.

I think I went with:
1. No
2. No
3. No
4. Yes
5. Yes

My final thoughts were:

1. Still not great, but Jonny had done a fine job of selling him as such. Would I go back to pre-2010 education? No. Did Gove drive up standards and expectations, especially for the poor? I think so.

2. OFSTED is not fit for purpose; it may need a new name, aims and form to have any kind of impact. However. I also don't really trust teachers or schools to be self accountable.

5. If I need character lessons, I am not carrying out my pastoral responsibility properly in the everyday interactions with my students. 

Takeaways

Did I bring anything practical back to my class room for Monday? No. Did I change my mind about any topics? Not really. Do I think the day was useful? Absolutely. So many seeds were sown. The conversations, interactions (both face to face and via Twitter), questions and reflections are still settling. I want to read more about Hirsch and his effect on Gove, I want to consider my contributions to character education as a head of year, I want to consider further the accountability within schools. This was NOT a TeachMeet with a whole series of shiny ideas to magpie (and don't get me wrong, I love those). This was not a panel debate with 5 minute soundbites. This was something a great. A space, and a time to think about some of the most important issues in education.

Big thanks to Katherine for hosting us. Huge gratitude to the speakers for giving up their time and leading us in a really excellent series of debates. Thanks for Bodil for awarding my chocolates. And of course to Andrew for organising the curry - thank goodness Moore Spice delivered! 

Other Blogs

• Daisy's Review
• Teach_Well's Review

Organising My First TeachMeet

And so #TMHavering is taking bookings! Fancy joining us? All the info is here: www.TMHavering.co.uk

But how did we get here?

As long ago as last summer, Andy Knill (@aknill) and I said to ourselves, there is NOTHING going on in Havering. Well there is, as there is lots of great schools with amazing teachers achieving fantastic things... but since most schools became academies as soon as they could, escaping Havering Borough control, very little has been going on centrally.

We looked at the success of #TMEssex and #TMLondon and agreed to put Havering firmly on the TeachMeet map with a well-planned, straightforward, high quality event. There are many teachers in the area who have not even heard of a TM and so we wanted to keep it simple, but make it good. Careful planning and consideration were important from the start.

We met twice at Bower Park to sort out the basics: date, time, location, format. We then set about getting the electronic infrastructure in place: email, Twitter, Facebook, website, buying URLs, logo, PBworks ad, presenter wiki, Eventbrite listing... There is far more to think about than just saying "Let's do a TeachMeet!". Also key to get Martin (@ICTMagic) onboard to be both technical wizard and chief camel thrower!

Having experienced excellent sessions at #TMLondon, #TMEssex and #TMEast, it was clear this careful planning was needed to ensure interest and create a legacy. Some suggested we should use one of the established names due to what Ross (@teachertoolkit) and Tom (@headguruteacher) had built. However both Andy and I want to do the same in Havering, hopefully by this time next year, #TMHavering will be equally recognised and established.

Luckily I'd read Ross' various posts and collected a few others, collating on my site: http://tiny.cc/teachmeets (worth careful reading if you are thinking about organising). It's fun and exciting, but also hard work and needs an allocation of what is already precious time. We are only part way there and no doubt I'll be blogging again about this experience. If you have any tips or ideas, please do get in touch!

If you are anywhere close to Romford, we'd love to have you come along in February. We promise, we'll be trying out best to make it a really great evening: relevant, useful, varied - and fun!