#TMLondon - The Aftermath

It is a great privilege for me to be involved in #TMLondon. For the second time, I have been working behind the scenes organising sponsorship, goodies and prizes for the evening. On the day, I was largely running around setting up and checking the competitions and managing the Twitter account. The only downside is that I don't get to hear all the speakers, nor say hello to everyone! 

However, to be part of such an exciting and dynamic event that provides really genuine and authentic CPD for those who attended is a really great thing. I'd like to thank Ross for the opportunity. Here are a few ways to find out what happened:

• Read Ross' comprehensive write up <here>
• Check out Ross' photo collection <here>
• Watch the whole thing again <here> thanks to Leon
• Look at Martin's wonderful photos <here>
• Find out who tweeted what thanks to Di's Storify <here>
• Check out my presentation <here>

On to the exciting stuff...

WINNER!

Jonathan Peel was our winner of the M&S hamper courtesy of edukit. Read his blog <here>

There were lots of great blogs on Staffrm, read them all <here> - The Staffrm team picked their best blog which belonged to Jaz Ampaw-Farr, read it <here>

EduKit is a social enterprise part funded by the DfE putting people before profit, we want to help all schools find the relevant support for their students, we have built a FREE online platform that can connect schools to external organisations that offer student programmes to help with all types of issues your students may face. We have over 800 organisations registered and more joining everyday! 30% of our programmes are FREE. It is completely FREE to register and use and all staff are welcome! Feel free to sign up and have a look https://www.edukit.org.uk/register/

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NEW BLOG COMPETITION

ClassCharts have offered to pay for dinner for two! This will be at a restaurant of your choice. In order to win this, you need to write a blog about #TMLondon - What Happened Next? You could blog about an idea that you used in your classroom, or an idea you share with collegaues. Have you been inspired to run your own TeachMeet, or have you made a new network connection. The deadline for this is Thursday 21st April 2016. The #TMLondon team will pick a winner. Please email all entries to TeachMeetLondon@gmail.com 

Seating plans in seconds & super fast behaviour management

Gorgeous seating plans for SIMS, etc.

Important information at your fingertips

Super fast behaviour management

Unusually powerful analytics

www.classcharts.com

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FREE TRIAL FOR ALL #TMLONDON ATTENDEES! 

We enable teachers to use the moving image and sound to facilitate teaching and learning. Our online service, Box of Broadcasts provides access to over 2 million broadcast TV and radio programmes and we would like to offer free trials for a month to every school attending Teachmeet London next week. To request a trial, teachers just need to email their name, school name, a start date for the trial and a contact email address to: BoB@bufvc.ac.uk. The subject header in the email should read, "Free trial of BoB." There is no obligation to subscribe. In case teachers wish to know the annual rates should they decide to subscribe, they are: £600 + VAT (Special and Primary Schools) £1200 + VAT (Secondary Schools)

#TMLondon: My Great Form Tutor

Photo by @benniskara

As well as arranging the competitions, prizes and thanking our sponsors I managed a 2 min presentation at TM London:

A short reflection as a current Head of Year, former Form Tutor (something I really miss) and member of Athens 1995 to 2000.

I remember how he was there on there on day one to make us smile and feel relaxed. He told us all the vital information that noone else did. The toilets are there… Lunch is at 12.30pm… Make sure you get a parent to sign your planner for Thursday.

I never felt like we were an afterthought or an inconvenience in his busy day. In fact, he got to the form room 5 minutes early at PM registration if we wanted a chat. I knew he would be able to help any issue that I had. Academic, social or even personal. He was someone who I could really trust.

He checked our uniform twice a day. In the end, we just knew to be smart. At the end of registration we always stood behind our chairs, went silent and he wished us a good morning or good afternoon.

If our form tutor wasn’t there, we always knew what to do. Wednesday was always silent reading day. Cover teachers were always amazed that we got our books out and started reading automatically. Our tutor used to read his book during this time too.

He checked if we had a pen in the morning. If we didn’t, he’d lend us one. We had to spend 15 minutes doing ‘community service’ at lunch to make amends though.

On a Friday, we had a form assembly. He used to insist that we included 3 bits of news: local, national and international. Someone then played their favourite song on his cassette deck, we all listened, even if we didn’t really like the music choice.

We used to get ALL the school news. Other forms came to find out from us. Everything was read out and went on the notice board. We all got involved in lots of extra curricular activities.

Our tutor had his purple folder, he called it the Bible (he wasn’t religious, but said it was the most important book he had). He kept track of everything to do with us in it: letters, detentions, merits...

Lots of other forms didn’t enjoy PHSE lessons, we did. It was clear our tutor knew what he was talking about it; it was like any other lesson. Sometimes better.

We didn’t want to get in trouble, it was like letting the form down. Our tutor wouldn’t shout if we did, but he always suggested we apologised to the teacher we had upset and make amends.

He wasn’t our friend, but he was special to us. We belonged to him, and him to us. We used to laugh when he told us jokes, and we all got very sad when his mum died.

Fast Forward 20 years…

My great form tutor is the front line, she picks up on everything. She is my ears, eyes and heart in 11X. She is the adult the students see twice a day, she always notices first if something is not right.

She knows which students are doing well, and in what subjects, she also knows where there is a cause for concern, and she always lets me know. She has great relationships with the students, and many of the parents.

It may be chance that absence is less of an issue in her form, but she follows up notes straight away and always finds out why they weren’t in school. Her form are always the most involved in every inter-house competition and charity event, even in Year 11.

She has helped every student plan their revision, and discusses stress relieving techniques with them on a regular basis. She also always has an activity up her sleeve: a quiz, a puzzle and thinking game.

Her form never leave registration noisily, they are always ready to work in Period 1 and 5.

She has really high expectations, of everyone, all the time! One student said, “She’s like our school mum”.

Being a form tutor is one of the most human parts of being a teacher.

Great form tutors make it easier for everyone to teach, and everyone to learn.

Form groups are often when the happiest memories are formed, and everyone remembers a great form tutor.

What kind of form tutor are you?

This isn't a true story sadly. It's a mixture of what I experienced at school, what I wanted at school, what I've tried to do, and what I encourage others to try and do. 

"No Magic Beans" - #TMLondon

Apologies - I can't remember who took this and tweeted it to me!

Thank you to everyone who said kind things about my presentation both via Twitter or in person at #TMLondon. It was a great evening and a real privilege to present and share something with the huge number of colleagues in person and online. Here I will outline what I covered:

Listen <Here>

I have written a blog post about what I am doing with KS4 classes which is <here>. I have done with my Y10 year group (I am Head of Y10) and my two Y11 RE classes... "Why has no-one ever told us this before?" some gasped. I am also looking to do a KS3 version ready for their end of year tests. I hope to sow some seeds of though; they're not magic beans though!

Image thanks to Ben Jose

I also hinted at the fact that meta-cognition / cognitive psychology is NOT a magic beans solution. This is something that Carl Hendrick has recently blogged about <here>. As he says, "to my mind there are four areas in education research: philosophy, anthropology, sociology and of course psychology and at the moment I worry that we seem to have hedged all our bets on the latter."

Somehow I also managed to get a reference in from Frank Skinner, my favourite comedian. A few years ago, he discussed how he tries to ensure that his memory doesn't deteriorate with old age by only Googling things he doesn't know, rather than things he doesn't remember. I think this is particularly important when we have the internet often just a button away....

A few people have said they were surprised by the information on my "Hot or Not" slide. This comes from an article from a number of top cognitive psychologists which can be read <here>. A summary is also available in my student booklet <here>.

Finally, if you fancy watching it again (or indeed for the first time). Check out the video below... fast forward to 37mins:

If you want to read more, see these:

• https://evidenceintopractice.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/can-we-teach-students-effective-revision-skills/ 
• http://www.huntingenglish.com/2013/04/07/effective-revision-strategies/ 
• https://classteaching.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/supporting-learning-through-effective-revision-techniques/
• http://johntomsett.com/2015/02/13/this-much-i-know-aboutteaching-students-meta-cognition-self-regulation-skills-for-the-examination-hall/
• https://mrshepstone.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/your-revision-time-is-precious-dont-waste-it/

Reflections & Thank You - #TMLondon

Image courtesy of Martin Burrett

Firstly, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone single person who came to TMLondon (again!). There were around 250 in attendance and around 200 were watching online. 450 teachers, in their free time, wanting to learn about being better teachers. That is incredibly powerful and very much 'good news' for the profession. I am disappointed that Nicky Morgan, Tristram Hunt and David Laws didn't accept our invites and come along.

A big thank you goes to every presenter. Due to my "prize man" role on the night, I have not yet caught up on the whole evening yet. Thankfully Leon Cych captured the whole evening and I can watch again in my own time, probably bit by bit! If the tweets and blogs are anything to go by, there is so so much to take from the evening.

• Watch again <here>

I'd also like to say a big thanks to team #TMLondon - Ross, Mark, Di, Amjad and Martin. All people absolutely dedicated to making education better, all in very different ways. Particularly thanks must go to Ross, Alex, Asmy and all the staff and students at QKynaston - a fantastic venue, hosts and the perfect bit of positive PR they needed. Thank you.

This is me taking a selfie in Ross' seat in his office

Our sponsors also need a massive thank you. My table was FULL of prizes to reward those who had given up their free time. There is a list up <here>. There are still some prizes to win... find out how <here>. It meant we had lots of food and drink, lots of goodies to take home plus many went home very happy with some excellent prizes including vouchers, IPEVO cameras, dinner in the Shard, ipods, books, subscriptions and much more! Thank you SO much to all. TMs shouldn't be dependent on sponsors but it is a nice reward for those who give up their own time to come along.

Just some of the prizes

Watch Amjad interview me about #TMLondon here: 

https://vimeo.com/123963481 

The Blogs of the Hosts

• Ross McGill, aka TeacherToolkit, reflects <here> - The Greatest CPD Ever! 
• Mark Anderson, aka ICTEvangelist, reflects <here> - My #TMLondon reflections presentation and thanks
• Amjad Ali, aka ASTSupportaali, writes <here> - #TMLondon 1/04/15
• Martin Burrett, aka ICTMagic, took some excellent photos <here> - no doubt reports will appear on UKEdChat soon!
• I have also written a new blog based on my presentation <here>

More Blogs

• Jill Berry outlines her presentation <here> - "Why should anyone want to be led by you?" - Ross also blogged about it <here>
• Abbie Mann gives her reflections <here> - A collision of 'Personal Legends'
• Kamil Trzebiatowski writes in real depth <here> and <here> 
• Victoria Hewett reflects <here> - Why I loved #TMLondon
• Rachel Smith shares her thoughts <here> - You've come from where?
• Candida Gould writes about her 'takeaways' <here> - I’m like a kid at a firework party!
• B Yusuf writes <here>
• Jen Hart 'complains' <here>
• Ross McGill responds <here>
• Naureen Azfal write <here>

Please email any further blogs to TeachMeetLondon@gmail.com - if you would like to be considered for a specific prize mention that too! Full details <here> 

Me with all you lovely, lovely people

#TMLondon - Blogs & Prizes

Image courtesy of TeacherToolkit

Thank you all so much for coming! As one of the organisers, I was genuinely humbled by the kind words from those at the event and online; it was very much appreciated. However, it does end yet...

We still have THREE prizes to award:

1 x Twinkl subscription

1x Optimus Education conference place and training pack

1x Insights Discovery Profile from Brightfield Consulting

To be in with a change of winning these, you must write a blog about TMLondon. It could be about one particular presentation (but not your own!), or about the whole evening. Those who viewed at home can also take part. Prizes are subject to availability in your area; the judges decision is final.

Please email a link to TeachMeetLondon@gmail.com by Sunday 12th April. If you include @TeachMeetLondon in any tweets we can share with the #TMLondon followers too! If you have a prize preference please also include in your email.

You can watch the videos again here to help you out: