Alan Davies
To start the day, we were delighted to welcome Alan Davies, executive Headteacher at Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy; a National Teaching School in Leyland, Lancashire. In 2012 the school was appointed as a School Direct school and it will also be licensed by the NCSL as part of the North West Leadership Partnership, the National College’s prestigious leadership programme across the North-West. Alan urged us to work together for the good of our profession. It is imperative, he suggested, that schools and universities work together; splendid isolation is not the way forward, true, equal partnership is. Delegates had the opportunity to debate the range of issues that Alan presented.
Download delegates response to issues in Alans presentation
Helen Scott
Our next keynote looked at school-led teacher education from an HEI perspective. We welcomed Helen Scott, Head of Department: ITE & CPD Partnerships, at MMU, Manchester Metropolitan University. Helen is responsible for maintaining and strengthening high quality partnerships between the Institute of Education at MMU and the schools and colleges they work with, in order to support trainee teachers in their professional learning and provide excellent professional development for in-service teachers and other educators. She began by referring to a very real problem over the past years - that of the constant struggle to find good placements – and went on to describe a plan which they had put into place before the recent government directives and which is designed to bridge the gap between MMU and schools. Helen gave a frank and open report of the benefits and challenges of the ‘University School’ model she described.
Stephen Cox
The final keynote of the trio was given by Stephen Cox who led the debate on to the CPD of practising teachers. Stephen is Managing Director at Osiris Educational which was established in 1997 to provide pioneering, challenging and effective training solutions for teachers. Osiris offers: the best trainers; leading edge, innovative ideas; transformational change; and inspirational and motivational training. Osiris currently supports 15 teaching schools. Stephen described the philosophy of Osiris to work towards outstanding teaching: involving good feedback in the form of pupil voice and assessment; autonomy in the form of resilience, meta-cognition and independence; engagement, involving intrinsic motivation, clarity and flow; and challenge, involving growth, mindsets and differentiation.
Download delegates response to issues in Stephen's presentation
Round Table Debates
The afternoon sessions of the day were given over to Round Table debates which gave delegates the opportunity to share examples of innovative and successful school-led teacher education in practice. Here you can access descriptions of the Round Tables and a summary of key points gathered by group leaders from the discussions. TEAN is very grateful to the presenters of the Round Tables for their time and inspiration:
Download further details about each of the round table debates
Round Table 1
Using video conferencing as a tool for initial teacher training and school improvement - Shirley Hindley, Edge Hill University and Wendy Dixon, Edge Hill University - Banks Methodist School, Southport.
Round Table 2
Modelling classroom-based action research for PGCE students - Karen Lockney, University of Cumbria, (Kevin Proudfoot, Nelson Thomlinson School, Wigton, Cumbria).
Round Table 3
Additional Localised Twilight Training for ITE Students of Placement - Richard Palmer, University of Cumbria and Catherine Glynn, University of Cumbria.
Round Table 4
No one can whistle a symphony: It takes a whole orchestra to play it (H.E.Luccock) - Catherine Carden, Canterbury Christ Church University, Vanessa Young, Canterbury Christ Church University, Alex Bolton, The Hundred of Hoo School, (Dr Gary Holden, The Joseph Williamson Trust).
