Last year we were able to secure the services of Mike Hughes to lead the day. The theme for that day was Leading the Learning. During Mike’s presentation he referred to a range of activities, initiatives, opportunities and tweaks. Hopefully they were tried and they have had an impact on learning and attainment in our classrooms.

After last year’s Inset Daywe made the decision to continue to work with Mike Hughes. The learning agenda forms the focus for all the Learning Community’s work.  There are examples of excellent practice within all our schools and we decided to build upon this to showcase and celebrate the learning opportunities our students already experience. The challenge was to develop these further. Over the last twelve months a group of sixteen staff, from across the schools, have been meeting together as a Research and Development group. Their brief was to take on board some of the ideas from last year and look at how they could be used in our classrooms, withour students. Mike has supported the programme throughout the year. He built upon the conclusions of the R&D Group as part of his input.

The bulk of the Inset Day was spent in workshops, led by colleagues from each school. They presented their findings and gave time to reflect and discuss the issues raised. The members ofthe R&D Group took on the extra work and responsibility. They stimulated and challenged our practice. They do not profess to be ‘experts’ but they showed a remarkable commitment to preparing and presenting their findings. Their work has demonstrated what our students can do when they are fully engaged in the learning process.

We ensured that all staff experienced the four areas of our targeted research; Understanding Learning, Reflection about Learning, Climate for Learning and Personalisation of Learning. Staff were not in a phase specific workshop but looked for cross-phase opportunities. Understanding where our students come from and where they move to is an important part of how we see our Learning Community develop. Five key questions were introduced at the start of the day to stimulate thinking and discussion.

The only time we looked for schools or curriculum areas to come together was at the end of the day for the evaluation and feedback session. It was important that staff took the opportunity to reflect on how their learning during the day could influence their classroom practice as well as developing the whole-school learning agenda. At the end of the day the Zone team, Heads and Deputies held a residential to plan for future activities based on the contributions made during the day.

We identified some keyquestions, themes and challenges for us as individuals, in our classrooms, schools, curriculum areas as well as across the Learning Community.
 
Key Questions:

1. Do teachers know andmodel the skills they expect pupils to have?

2. Will tryingsomething different help you do things differently?

3. Is it alright tohave more questions than answers?

4. To what extent do welet our students influence what and how they learn?

5. Whatis the difference between teacher and facilitator, do you know when to be which?

On Friday the 7th November staff from all the Zone schools will come together for the annual Zone Inset day. As always the focus is on improving Learning.

This year we have secured the services of Mike Hughes. Mike is a well known and highly acclaimed education author/trainer. He is best known for his hugely influential books such as Closing the learning gap, Tweak to Transform and his latest publication And the Main Thing is .... Learning.

The theme for the day will be ‘Leading the Learning’. Staff will have the opportunity to hear Mike share practical and realistic ‘tweaks’ to improve learning. There will be time for reflection and planning to implement strategies at class, year, faculty, school and zone level.

Following the Inset day the Heads, Deputy Heads and the Zone team will hold a residential to outline the priorities for the next year. The resultant action plan will incorporate features of the Inset day.

Pupils from across the Zone schools were invited to enter a Friendship/Anti-Bullying competition as part of Anti-Bullying week.

Over 100 entries were received ranging from poems, posters, letters, plays to raps. A booklet, CD and posters have been compiled and forwarded to the schools.

Prizes were allocated to Nursery, KS1, KS2 and Comprehensive age groups.