Meeting with Nick Rate (CORE) - 17th May 2010
Peter welcomed Principals and recapped morning session
Milestone Reports
- 1st one we did a. b. c. & d. For the 2nd Milestone Report a.c & d - could have been done collaboratively - b needs to be done on school basis
Nick then discussed the purpose of the meeting
- Initially to touch base with Principals
- A guide to writing Milestone Report
- Talking about progress to date in schools
Nick’s role
- This is one of 2 face to face visits - ideally next visit spend time in schools (T3/4) - tie in to submission of final Milestone
- Milestone gets submitted to Nick on behalf of MOE - who reports back
- Ian’s contact details added
- Cluster network meeting - Peter fed back at Lead Teacher meeting - 2nd meeting mid September (essentially for Principals/Directors Lead - Teachers may find suitable/relevant)
- One of our schools should aim to host a Cluster Network meeting within the 3 years
- ICTPD online - Nick requires some feedback - some use of site - site is being updated. Found the content is very full and hard to navigate
Finance
Release days need to be examined to ensure teachers are making full use of time allocated
MOE will expect financial obligations to be met - schools required to track payments/commitments. Lead School will be audited.
On-line Modules
PD-Online Modules - Cyber Citizens Cyber Safety http://ictpd-digital-citizenship-and-cybersafety.wikispaces.com/
National Standards
Discussion on where are our schools are at? …..
Lot of discussion how to record anecdotal information - how do we show evidence?
Teachers using samples in National Standards book. Then move into Reading and then Writing
Meeting parental expectation - academic report will need to be revised
Concern about number of students who may be ranked below
Big increase in teacher workload - plain language report
Writing & Reading may be easier across schools
Mathematics may be harder
Management teams have been to courses. Starting to map assessment tools able to use.
Schools in campaign to give pros & cons re standards. Looking to involve Team Liaisons to provide information.
Some schools decided to make some banks of goals & indicators for teachers to use - lead teachers to NS workshops - cascade down to staff.
Has taken away from strategic planning and broad curriculum planning
Consistency & teacher judgement - 2 sessions of moderation within school - the EHASAS cluster activities gave us external moderation of writing samples - showed we have high degree of accuracy & co-relation of teachers to external moderation
Schoolmaster will be releasing a new version in May
Moderation was a collaborative effort within EHSAS - we do have had a turnover of teacher within the cluster
Do we see ICT PD playing a role in National Standards? (e.g. e-portfolios)
e-asTTle may play a role - portfolios require clarification of level and next step learning
Keeping books as record of learning - idea of Learning Journal - show student voice, reflective comments
Need to avoid doubling up of information - multi-media approach to data collected and presented. Web based storage of information - MLE (managed learning environment)
Learning @ Schools
Group gave feedback on attendance & views - positive, helpful, informative, chance to network, see and play with new equipment
Lead Teacher Days
Principals/facilatator attending with LT’s - thoughts feedback:
LT’s would like days to be more practical (recommend use of Interface magazine) - something they could take back to teams.
Improved feelings of confidence from LT’s from attendance - starting to lead meeting with ICT component. LT’s like the opportunity to discuss with colleagues.
Survey was a good idea - revealing a lot of helpful information
LT’s enjoyed strategic planning, have enjoyed time to explore different avenues and support provided. Teachers have worked on long term planning - sharing a syndicate goal - able to embed an ICT component - whole team out for a day
Lead Teachers selected for variety of reasons:
as being pedagogical leaders, had to have interest & wanting to improve IC skill, each team leader discussed strengths and selected via syndicates to give support, asked for expressions of interest from teams
Action Research
How much teachers are into the process? How getting teachers to record actions
Opted for team action research goal - teachers will add their own goals to team goal - have 2 action research goals by the end of T2 - recording on sound, key points transcribed
Twice a term syndicate leaders hold QLC within team - on going discussion - record points on file
Personal booklets - syndicate level goals established - Peter had focus on student achievement - later realised more on teacher achievement so focus has moved there. Reflections will be recorded in Appraisal booklets
Milestones
Links to evidence (Nick will need to be invited to join any wiki that is providing evidence)
Quotes - student/teacher voice
Video
Peter to go through and check school entries for duplication
Self Review Rubric
CORE survey for beginning of the year
Overall an informative and helpful session that helped to clarify some of our questions regarding the 1st Milestone. Appears that we could work more collaboratively on comments a., c. & d. with each school providing comments for b. Evidence.
Feeling that the Cluster is finding a sense of direction but we do realise these are our first steps on an on-going journey.
Looking forward to the QLC's when we come together as syndicates.
