Yesterday was a special day. Two of the middle leaders I have been working with presented at The Festival of Education (Education Festival) as part of the panel session with Teaching Leaders – “Retaining your high-potentials.” That was just the start of the day. I attended with a new colleague, with the remit to listen and to gather the sharpest thinking on the topic of Staff Professional Development.
Following the opening address, we attended ‘Making Every Lesson Count’ led by Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby. The session focused on six evidence informed pedagogical principles that support great teaching and how they can be implemented in the classroom. By far my favourite quote of the day came from this session. When discussing the importance of effective questioning Andy Tharby added,
Reward for the right answer should be a harder question. – Andy Tharby
For the record, we were thinking of getting all staff a copy ‘Making Every Lesson Count’ and still are, though Shaun noted that due to the success of the book, it will hopefully be coming out in paperback soon… (code for “quite a bit more affordable” when buying multiple copies.)
Next – we went onto Kris Boulton session, “A new model of teacher development.” The take away message – professional development must offer opportunities to develop both subject and teaching “craft” as well as offer time to discuss the impact of that investment. I also picked up a neat way to teaching ratio.
The afternoon was kicked off by Sir David Carter (National Schools Commissioner). “Building an education system on lasting collaboration, leadership and great governance” may read as a bit of a mouthful, the take away message was clear and straightforward. “Impact intelligence.” These are not the exact words by my interpretation and reflection of them.
The self-evaluative and technical ability to improve the component parts of a school with the emotional intelligence to demonstrate leadership that encourages “followship.”
“What makes great CPD for teachers” was billed as a panel discussion however the lion’s share of the session was a presentation by leading authority on innovation and creativity, Charles Leadbeater. Leadbeater made a strong case that education has to change, that
education systems need to provide dynamic experiences for young people through which they can learn in practice how to deploy knowledge in action, to work with others and to develop critical personal strengths such as persistence and resilience, to learn from feedback and overcome setbacks.
Leadbeater goes on to illustrate his point,
Developing persistence, resilience, collaboration and agency is much more like learning to swim than it is like learning the periodic table. – Charles Leadbeater
I certainly align with this thinking and if you are interested, in reading more, you might enjoy his paper The Problem Solvers. It is, of course, far more complex than what should be taught.
The day ended with Ian Morris and “Teaching character education and well-being.” With the growing emphasis in my leadership thinking on the important of Values, you can never get enough eudemonism (a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood of actions producing happiness.)
A day made all the better by the people I met and re-connected with. Freya Odell, Jen Ludd, Phil Stock, Martyn Reah, Jarleth OBrien… to name less than half.
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