Have you ever been to a training event where the main thing that you take away is a chance remark over coffee? I remember years ago hearing about Tarsia software for creating jigsaws and card activities which transformed my thinking about active learning for years afterwards!
Teachers can learn so much from each other – things that are well known to you could be a revelation to someone else. I’ve been lucky enough to work in departments with plenty of innovative colleagues who are willing to share, but it must be much harder if you’re flying solo with the A level provision in your school. Whatever your situation, attending a Teacher Network could be a very profitable way to spend 90 minutes or so, and the AMSP are here to help with this, hosting Teacher Networks in various parts of the country.
As in every other area of life, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the provision of Teacher Networks, with several networks moving their meetings online. This opens up the opportunity to meet with teachers from schools in other parts of the West Midlands region where we don’t host Teacher Networks.
Teachers from all over the West Midlands region attended the most recent Coventry and Warwickshire A level Teacher Network that looked at Desmos and Assessment. We hope at our next meeting to have a speaker from an exam board to focus on assessment and facilitate our discussion. Teachers from across the West Midlands region are invited to attend – please keep an eye on the West Midlands regional events page. There are also plans for a meeting in the summer term to discuss transition from Year 11 to Year 12 for students whose learning has been impacted by the pandemic. Maybe a chance remark at this meeting could be really useful to you!
There’s a lot to be said for having meetings face-to-face and, should life ever get back to normal, it would be good to extend AMSP provision of Teacher Networks in other parts of the West Midlands. The plan is that teachers who have found the online meetings useful could be the nucleus of new networks closer to home. Or maybe the future is online too – it’s up to you!
By Rose Jewell