Continuing Professional Development>CPD News
Continuing Professional Development News
We are now through the first phase of our coaching initiative with colleagues from West Dumbarton. Roddy McDowell has organised three groups of coaching training which has been well recieved and has provided us with a base for the further development of our coaching work. Roddy has also arranged for Andy Vass of Munro Associates to train a group of staff for a coaching diploma. The diploma will hopefully lead to some staff providing coaching support to others in the authority and to this end, Roddy has arranged a deal whereby we can use the Andy Vass training materials. If anyone wants to have a chat about taking coaching further, then get in touch with me. We still see coaching as being a prime driver for developing "Our Learning Culture" and all participants seem to get a lot out of it.
Roddy McDowell has now retired from Argyll and Bute, and I would like to thank him for all the work he has done on coaching and "Our Learning Culture". We wish you well for your retirement Roddy, although with all the consultancy work you will be doing I hope you will remember to relax.
Our leadership programme also includes a day on assertiveness and coaching skills; as a result of this, some of the participants have agreed to form and run a "coaching bank" to develop more coaching activity around Argyll. Watch this space for more news on this initiative.
Matthew
Well, we have been offering co-operative learning academies for a full year now! We have had 7 academies and some schools have run their own training activities with Chris Ward as well. All told we now have around 400 staff trained in co-operative learning. In addition all of our newly qualified teachers do a 1 day "taster" and some follow-through activities during their support programme. We have some great activities happening in our classrooms as a result. If you have anything new or interesting happening with your co-operative learning then let me know about it please? Most of the QIO's have been through an academy as well and will be pleased to discuss any ideas with you. Anyway, the big news is that we have secured Chris Ward and Jim Craigen for another 2 academies for those of you who want to see what you have been missing! If you think you might be interested then sign up, because we can't carry on with these academies forever!
October 2007 academy: 16th - 18th October
October 2007 recall day: 15th October
Easter 2008 academy: 15th - 17th April
Easter 2008 recall day: 18th April
And I am excited to announce an additional "advanced" co-operative learning course for staff who want to take this further and who might want to become supporters for others. This course will be by application only. If you have been making regular use of your co-operative learning and feel that you want to go further then get in touch with me about a place.
Advanced academy: February 7th and 8th 2008
Thank you to everyone from primary and secondary who has participated so-far!
LANA (Learning And Needs Analysis) is our new online needs analysis database. It’s purpose is twofold: It will help your support services to have a clearer idea about what teachers want to learn for the forthcoming year. It will also help teachers to get in touch with each other about learning or practice that they could share. Growing “Our Learning Culture” is partly about better networking between teachers as and when they need it, and this system is central to helping this happen. By now, all teachers should have received their user guide and password. Please log in and enter your needs and any learning you can offer your colleagues whenever you want to. Remember that next years learning opportunities catalogue will be based on what you have entered by the end of January, 2008; so make sure you log on before then. The more people who use the system, the more useful it will be to us.
Click here to log into LANA (Link to an external site)
I have just spent a great day with 9 of our school leaders on the subject of "Managing CPD and PRD" in your schools. The issues that arose were around the move from centring on recording CPD hours to "knowing" through your management systems what exciting and motivating learning is going on. Key to this is the PRD interview. Discussion centred on how we can ensure the quality of interview that our teachers deserve. Coaching techniques were seen as a great way forward for our PRD interviews; check LANA for coaching dates as there are still places available. Above all, we discussed the ways that we can finally get beyond "doing courses". For example, all our probationers are now doing an action research project; why not our teachers?
If any CPD co-ordinators would like a chat about developing their CPD systems then please feel free to get in touch with me for a chat.
Mini Research Projects from Argyll & Bute 2008-2009 Probationers.
Click here to download (PDF)
Mini Research Projects from Argyll & Bute 2007-2008 Probationers.
Click here to download (PDF)
SCSSA Leadership Courses available. click here for more information.

Welcome to this news page. Any big stories about good learning for staff in Argyll will be posted here; do let me know if you have a good story to share with all of us? The contact details for me are: Matthew Boyle, CPD QIO, Colgrain Education Office, Helensburgh or telephone 01436 678 635.
Coaching Initiative
Roddy McDowell has now retired from Argyll and Bute, and I would like to thank him for all the work he has done on coaching and "Our Learning Culture". We wish you well for your retirement Roddy, although with all the consultancy work you will be doing I hope you will remember to relax.
Our leadership programme also includes a day on assertiveness and coaching skills; as a result of this, some of the participants have agreed to form and run a "coaching bank" to develop more coaching activity around Argyll. Watch this space for more news on this initiative.
Matthew
Cooperative Learning Academies
LANA (Learning And Needs Analysis)
Click here to log into LANA (Link to an external site)
Managing CPD in your schools
Probationers Mini Research Project 2008/2009
Click here to download (PDF)
Probationers Mini Research Projects 2007-2008
Click here to download (PDF)





