Likeminds Blog

Last year I was approached by the organisers of the Bedford Beer Festival to see if I would like to sponsor a barrel of beer. Although there are no obvious commercial links I have always been a great fan of the festival as one of the friendliest and most good natured events that the town hosts.

Part of the deal was to choose the brewery you wished to support. Unable to think of one, I asked my wife who very sensibly suggested 'Brains' although the subtlety of the sponsorship by a company involved in learning was completely lost on most of the people we quizzed on it.

For some reason I was also given a second barrel - without paying for it. The choice of beer was very interesting; it was 'Fruitbat'. Does someone at CAMRA know me?

In conjunction with Shenley Brook End School this was a partial re run of the workshop run for the incoming Year 7's in Penrith last year. More indoors based the programme used eight brain stations to give the students an experiential understanding of multiple intelligence types with everything from learning the All Blacks haka to balloon modelling, an agony aunt session, maths puzzles, African drumming, maggot racing, walking the plank and learning Japanese. This is how education should be - active, fun and lively!

Despite spending a day with all of Year 11 I still didn't find out who Edward is or why he was Blessed but there we go. Situated on the N.Wales coast Rhyl is one of those strange places where everyone seems to be from somewhere else than Wales - Liverpool and Manchester being the favourites.

This was probably one of my most productive and enjoyable workshops - taking a large number of dis believeing pupils and teachers who have been through the mill race of Ofsted and trying to shift their thinking forward to believeing that they 'can' and 'should'.

A day full of loveable rogues - and that was just the staff! and a long drive home, made longer by stopping off at Cae Mabon in Llanberis  but worthwhile in every sense and made all the more poignat by it being the week in which I appeared on Teachers TV and our daughter had her first birthday. 

Based at Honister Heights this is a High School in every sense. The workshop was for the new Year 12 in the hope that we could begin to develop a programme of becoming independent learners. Working with the very able Jack Vass we started with a plenary for the whole of Year 12 followed by two seperate Learn to Learn sesions for half of the year group.

It was a good workshop, the only problem with Year 12 is at this stage in the year they are thinking one of two things - Why am I here or should I be here? or I have got my GCSE's what more do you expect? As staff we expect them to have metamorphosed into young adults over the Summer holidays when in many cases they are still Year 11's - just without uniforms.

First training day of the year was to Gusford Primary in Ipswich. Rather worryingly staff started turning up from 7.30 a.m. onwards. This was keen indeed. This was a really positive start helped by the fact that the new Head and I have worked together in the past when he worked in Hertfordshire.

After a quiet evening at the Travel Inn (eat your heart out Alan Partdige) the next day I was at the Oaks Community Primary just up the road from Gusford. The head didn't know me there but had heard about me from Colin at Gusford. The title of the two days was 'Putting Creativity into the Curriculum' which has to be about my perfect brief. We spent both days on a roller coaster of different ideas which was great fun to facilitate and seemd to go down very well with the staff. 

Back to work with a vengeance after a summer holiday of camping in N.Wales came in the form of another Training Day for Simply Education - the teaching supply agency.

Offering the chance to win a SatNav as an incentive to attend we had over forty teachers on the day from the usual amazing array of backgrounds and countries. As ever it was a really fun day despite Bedford school getting the booking wrong so that we had to put the tables and chairs out!

Adam and Sharon from Simply extended the raffle to include wine and chocolates which definitely worked as every feedback sheet mentioned more raffles and more prizes for next time.

I have always been happy to talk to parents as they are a very important, if not the most important, part of the picture when it comes to supporting students learning. Turnout can be an interesting phenomenon. To date, four is the lowest and  one hundred and fifty the highest. There are about 150 students on the G&T register at the school and about sixty parents turned up which was pretty good considering the sun was shining. However there was no football or final episodes on the telly so that worked in our favour. I tried to illustrate to parents how their learning experiences and learning styles could affect their children's progress and how fear of failure can be an enormous restraint on them trying new things. This was the last job of the season so all that is left is to sort out is September's jobs and to see if we have made any money and maybe have a holiday.

So no blog for a month. Fortunately in May everything goes quiet. SAT's are underway and Year 11 have gone on study leave which means I have a bit of time to catch up and dream up some new courses!

The season tends to kick off again in June with Teachers conferences and then transition workshops - Yr.6/7, 10/11 and the all important Sixth Form induction.

This week it was the turn of Islington CEA (Cambridge Education Associates) who were hosting a Primary and Secondary Deputy Heads conference at the Alias Seattle hotel. Big excitement, was that the BBC were filming in the marina and there were famous people staying in the hotel. Griff Rhys Jones and gang. Of equal excitemement the Authority are introducing the International Primary Curriculum and my job was to talk about global thinking which was geat fun and despite the best efforts of a small group of Secondary teachers to be totally disinterested and quite rude everyone else really enjoyed it.  

Ysgol Grango must have one of the best addresses in Britain. At the top of Vinegar Hill in the town of Rhosllanerchrugog. Not surprisingly it is generally called Rhos but pronounced more like Rose than Ross. Despite spending all day with Year 11 on the Learn to Learn programme I still manged to be given lessons in how to pronounce it. I think I succeeded.

I then came home to face the delicious task of moving house. Made learning Welsh seem quite easy....

From the hustle and bustle of the East End of London to Britain's newest city - Milton Keynes.

This workshop was a Year 11 Learn to Learn at Shenley Brook End School spread over two days and punctuated by being asked to be the guest of honour at the Awards Evening which despite being tired from the dismal Goodies and my daughter refusing to go to sleep was really good fun.

Great end to a very busy week in preparation for the arrival of in laws various for our daughter's baptism. Never a dull moment!

Back to Swanlea school in Whitechapel for some pre SAT''s Learn to Learn with Year 9.

Despite being in a challenging part of London, Swanlea achieve great things with their students and the school's busy and orderly feel is a direct reflection of the hard work and unflagging commitment of their staff.

Great day only marred by making the effort to go all the way to Northampton afterwards to see the Goodies at the Derngate Theatre - they were dire!

What a great way to kick off the new term for both the staff and myself. King Charles 1 School from Kidderminster took two days out to set their vision for their new school. INSET away from school is always more productive and Puckrup Hall just off the M50 was a great choice of venue.

Teaming up with Geraint Roberts the Deputy my job was to get staff to engage with how we can actually put the vision into practise within the school. I think we did it in a way that was lively, fun and enjoyablke on waht was a very hot and sunny day. Thanks to Rod Smith of Lighthouse PD for bringing this one in.

Arranged in conjunction with Simply Education, one of Bedford's leading teacher supply agencies, this was a training day for their supply teachers in Classroom Management Skills.

As many of their teachers are overseas trained it was an opportunity to try to bring them up to speed on developments in classroom technique especially in the more challenging schools.

The course was a full day held at the Erskine May Hall in the very beatiful grounds of Bedford School. I think many of the teachers wanted to know why more of their schools didn't look like this one! After the initial 'get it off your chest' session mainly centred around the hard to believe rudeness of some children we had a really enjoybale and productive day.

With delicious half time food from the local Polish cafe and free copies of the award winning Teachers Pocketbooks we looked at ways of dealing with confrontational behaviour as well as ways of keeping difficult situations light and focusing on good teaching practise.

Thanks to Sharon, Adam and Jason from Simply Education for arranging the day and paying the invoice so promptly!

Swanlea School is in Tower Hamlets. From some of the comments that I got in the weeks before I went there you would think it was downtown Bagdhad. Despite these comments I had a lot of fun and met a lot of articulate and interesting students. Most importantly there was a good supply of tea - and toast at breaktime.

This workshop was with Year 11. I am going back in on the 18th April to work with Year 9. It will be interesting to observe the contrast if there is any.

With one day to go before the school prom this was never goinmg to be easy!

Once again working with First Partnership this was a revision skills workshop for all of Year 11at Bohuint School in Liphook. Run in the sports hall with half the year group at a time we did manage to engage most of the students but in a very high achieving school I wonder if it felt like just one more thing to do.

Thanks go to Ronnie and Denis for their hard work and to Jacqui at First Partnership for getting me there in the first place.

The four and a half hour drive home left me feeling drained of all life by the time I got home. Is there a fan club for the M25?   

Not that I saw much of it! It was so cold that my one attempt at a walk down the front in Littlehampton was quickly curtailed in favour of going back to the Travel Inn for a cup of tea and a laze on the bed.

This was a double session with a workshop for parents in the evening followed by a day with the C/D Borderline students at Littlehampton School.

Despite the interruption of an ill timed fire drill this was a really good workshop which again proved that careful planning and good staff involvement really pays dividends.

Despite leaving resonably early in the day the drive home seemed to take forever due to roadworks and sheer volume of traffic. Viva M25!

Despite

Under the title of 'Doh, I don't know - thinking skills and how to expand your practical intelligence' this was an outreach day for students of the National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth.

The forty students were all Year 6 - 8 from a wide variety of schools and the aim of the session was to give the students practical thinking skills exercises which  were fun, interactive and competitive.

With everything from paper aeroplanes to basic juggling and mind mapping I think we met the aim - and no one looked too tired or bored!

Delighted that I got home to see the rugby I was less than delighted with the score! 

There are people you know who ring you up with ideas that you might decline if you didn't already know them. When the Head of Year 9 at Chenderit School near Banbury asked if I would work with all 175 pupils in Year 9 in one go I initially baulked, then grinned and agreed.

With the right planning, suitable environment, correct equipment and staff support anything is possible and this was good proof of that. Despite the huge numbers the session went really well even though I was superceded by a Red Nose Day flanning competition!

Back to being a 'yes' in life I suppose. 

Working in conjunction with First Partnership this workshop was for the C/D borderline students at Petersfield School. Unlike many other such workshops though this one took place in a Five Star hotel with the venue and catering paid for by the hotel group as part of their corporate responsibility programme.

Whether the students appreciated how lucky they were to be in such lovely surroundings was debateable but it certainly broke the mould of working in the school hall and as for the catering.......

My only worry is that in our desire to improve results that the tail has started to wag the dog in terms of schools pandering to student needs rather than helping them achieve. A school in Bedford gives free driving lessons to the underachievers in the hope of motivating them. Not sure what kind of message it sends to those who are achieving and not getting the freebies.

It was International Womens Day and the P.E. Dept were street dancing with the girls which left the question - 'what do we do with the boys?'. Part of the answer at Belvoir High School in Leics was meditation classes with the Head and P4C with me. Life at Year 9 was looking up.

Using an exercise called the Auction of Life the question we looked at was 'What is Success?' . Bidding with pretend money for pre determined lots such as a nice car, lovely house and more intangible items such as security for your family produced interesting tactics (syndicates, reselling of succesful bids) and surprising bids.

All in all it was a great session which was repeated twice and worked superbly with groups of boys who all said they thought the session would be boring when first asked at the beginning.

Viva P4C..

OK, so it snowed and the schools were shut for a day. Great, we all made a snowman and then it melted except that Hertfordshire schools remained closed which meant that I couldn't do the Year 9 G&T workshop at Monks Walk School. I have to admit that I was looking forward to it because I had been able to get hold of both a 7" and 12" vinyl record to use as a prop for the mind mapping exercise. Oh, the hours that one could spend arranging and re arranging a vinyl collection not to mention reading and re reading (or just gazing at) the sleeves. Not so exciting with CD's, non existent with MP3's and Ipod's! So it's into the office every day trying to get my head round accounting systems, invoices and wondering if it will all work. Mind you at least Valentine's was during the holiday which meant you had one less reason for forgetting a card!

The Eastern Region Gifted and Talented Partnership Outreach meeting. I wonder if you have to be gifted to remember it all let alone pronounce it! Six Mile Bottom is actually a place just outside Newmarket which is where we met. Aim of the session, run by the NAGTY (National Association of Gifted and Talented Youth) co ordinator Ruth Broomhall, was to establish what is effective outreach. Ruth asked me to kick the morning off which we did with two exercises - 'workshop bingo' and the 'essay builder' both of which went down well. Despite the snowy roads the turnout was good and the lunch at Swynford Paddocks delicious!

First job of 2007! As a result of  a staff training day which I did for the South Bucks Catholic Schools (on the day that our baby daughter was due!) back in September the school booked me to work with all their Year 11 students on a Learn to Learn Day. Masterminded by the very efficient Jane Ebberson, Learning Mentor, and nicely introduced by Miss Jamieson, HOY, we started the day with a session for all the students in the theatre followed by separate sessions for half the year group at a time in the library. A really fun day with lots of energy and activity in a school whose motto is 'Working Together in Christ'. Based in High Wycombe it meant a very early start to get around a horribly wet and congested M25 but counterbalanced by a lovely drive home through the Chilterns in which I think I saw a Red Kite wheeling high over a field.

This is a new blog site which has been added to the site. The aim is to give schools a better idea of the type of work we do and to record some of the really interesting and varied jobs that we get to do. When I can master the technology it will contain photos too. Happy New Year everybody. Tom