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>

Come Work With Me? (Advertising A Job)

And so the world of Twitter and blogs continues to open new possibilities... especially in the job market! 

Last year, I was fascinated to read about Ross McGill (aka TeacherToolkit) and his quest for a new job in Scotland via blogging and Twitter - read <here>. Certainly the world of social media and teacher blogging have revolutionised so much of what we do - why not the jobs market too?

Martin Burett (aka ICTMagic) has recently launched a new arm of UKEdChat.com to help teachers find jobs (see <here>) that has a very different price structure to that of TES Jobs. It will be interesting to see if schools will sign up to this instead - I hope so, as Martin is doing brilliant things via UKEdChat - make sure you are signed up to all their regular bulletins.

TES Job adverts start at £199 and go above £1000 depending on how much space you want. However, how many staff still read the large jobs section? I get emails weekly with targeted ads, I've also started using the iPad app (still a little fiddly!). However there are other options... Guardian Education Jobs continues to grow and searching for 'Education Jobs' in Google throws up an increasing number of recruitment sites.

Some schools are also using various recruitment agencies more and more... not just for temporary positions but for more permanent ones too. I don't think it's a coincidence that these agencies are more than happy to sponsor TeachMeet events where they can speak to staff about their services. They must work, or schools simply wouldn't be paying their fees.

Twitter has also played a large part in this change. Ross started up a Twitter account called @MyEdHunt which retweets jobs and many schools and staff tweet and retweet vacancies in their schools. Martin is also tweeting jobs via @UKEdjobs too. Ultimately the schools' own website can become a vital hub to catch the attention of potential employees.

This is the second time we are advertising this job as unfortunately we didn't appoint first time around. Considering it was very short notice, we managed to get a few applications, some via Twitter. This time we are advertising via the Catholic Teacher's Gazette which is in print and online; this was a cost decision. However it is increasingly hard to decide where to spend your money?

Perhaps, a strong social media presence may be the new way forward for schools.  I'm hoping I can get the job out there again via Twitter and this blog. I'll be sending everyone the way of our school website where all the details are <here>. However, the flip side to this is that there are a lot of good teachers on Twitter but a huge number of good teachers who are not... (yeah and maybe they should be! See <here>)

Do you want a job working with me in an amazing, vibrant and official Outstanding (S48) RE Department? Get involved <here>.

Update 29/4/14:
Also now on TES in the end!! <here>

Sharing: How Much?

At the start of half term, I got married. As this was to a colleague, it was BIG news. Also as a Catholic RE teacher (who by coincidence was teaching Y10 about marriage at the time), receiving a sacrament, it had added significance - I was finally "practising what I preached", as I was helpfully told by a student.

I think it is a testament to the school in which I work that this was very public knowledge, but without much hassle. The fact that many students attend the church where we were getting married, and it was published in the newsletter, made it very clear as to the date, time and place. Also staff were all aware and many students had relentlessly quizzed them, with small details, often accidentally, revealed. Our school provides itself on its family-like community, and everyone seemed very happy to be genuinely celebrating in our marriage.

It then became hard to work out what to share. Students had asked me to put a picture on the RE Twitter feed. In many schools, teachers would not dream of doing this, but after discussion with my new wife we decided that a few days after that we would publish 'the selfie' taken in the wedding car (see <here>), and one of us in the church walking down the aisle(<here>). These obviously got a lot of retweets and a large number of incredibly kind and genuinely lovely comments from the students.

I know many teachers would be hesitant to share anything of what could be a very private day. Many teachers would not want any students to know about their wedding. I'm not sure if it is the nature of my school, or the nature of my job, or the kind of person I am.

RE teaching lends itself to deeply personal stories. I have spoken about the highs and lows in the lives of my friends and families including the illness and death of my grandparents in lessons. It's hard to be genuine without being personal. It's one of the reasons that I love RE so much and I think Tom Bennett summed it up well in his article recently in the TES (see <here>); it genuinely is a subject like no other.

Already when teaching about marriage we have discussed in the class the marriage preparation and the 'compatibility test', but the question is now, how much more do you, or should you share?

Next year when I teach about marriage in the Catholic church, I have done it, and I'm happy to talk about it... however is my wedding video going to be the ultimate resource or a step too far?