The Evidence People
"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful"*Assessment is definitely in the air. A very focussed conference (Assessing the Way Forward) on 24 June, for all Yorkshire and Humber schools that wrestled determinedly with systematising and framing assessment, helped me pull some pretty disparate threads together.
The evidence base about Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and more recently Continuing Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) that works for teachers and pupils is settled and mature.
Phew wot a scorcher!
I spent two days in company of academics, government officials and teacher professional association representatives from around the world looking at this question.
This was a terrific event. Great presentations from a good range of perspectives, most kept to strict timescales and lots of debate amongst smart people form lots of countries. Things that stick in my mind and that I am still pondering:
The longer days and snowdrops are telling me that we are on our way out of winter’s gloom – even if the colder weather feels more wintry.
Phew! The middle section of this term has been a whirlwind of meetings, development sessions, conferences and research visits. A special favourite (apart from a very peaceful picnic in the middle of a 10.5KM paddle/walk to and from this tarn) was spending a day with 170 PGCE students in Belfast – we were really struck by the depth in which the Big Picture of the National Curriculum adopted by QCDA from the NI original is embedded in ITE. |
The second stop on my intensive learning journey was the 2011 British American Conference in London designed to help leaders from different fields expand their notion of what leadership means by working well beyond their field and through the lens of contrasting British and America approaches... This was certainly outside my field
I am still processing all that I learned during a ten day marathon tour of some very different sites of learning. And having spoken about some of this –and about the contrasts to various colleagues they all said write about it – so here are some thoughts and questions about some pretty amazing experiences that fell over each other in a journey, over 10x days to Belfast, London, Coventry, Newcastle, London, Coventry ,Cumbria and Oxford. And yes this was end on!