Packages
In addition to keynote speakers, Slater Baker can offer a range of complete programmes which are suitable for a half or full day duration. These are ideal for INSET training days and group networking events.
All Slater Baker complete programmes are offered as an outline which can be tailored to suit your specific needs and ambitions after close consultation with the course leader. The course can include an ongoing link with the course leader, to follow progress made and to support implementation of the ideas and practices that have arisen from the course.
DAVID CAMERON - Making real improvement in your school
All of the research that we have, as well as our own common sense, tells us that genuine improvement in any school will come from improvements in the practice of teachers. This course addresses this. It sets out the importance of good quality teaching and stresses how much of that depends on the application of basic skills and techniques. Yet, many schools still struggle to help good teachers to get better and to make a long-term difference to the contribution of others. The self-evaluation tool used has proven to be highly successful in doing exactly this.
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FRANK CRAWFORD - Conversations and Decisions
Often we go to professional development courses that are about the system world – government policy, accountability, testing, exams, and school effectiveness and improvement. We often don’t get the chance to discuss our life world – why we came into teaching, what we’re about. The best conversations revolve around how to connect our life world and what we believe in as teachers to the system world that we have to live in. Making connections across these two worlds only takes place through discussion and sharing ideas and views using our motivations and our experience to increase and develop our own learning. In so doing, we continue to deepen and broaden our own identity as teachers.
This course is a series of fast-moving mini-talks and discussions covering as many topics as you wish from the wide range of issues that face schools today including developing a new curriculum, balancing experiences across that curriculum, assessing for learning as well as public reporting, involving parents and the many other aspects that schools deal with every day.
FRANK CRAWFORD - Getting ahead of the game in a changing world
Schools often feel buffeted by external forces. They are often criticised in the press for lagging behind the ‘real world’. The trouble is, for our learners, school is the real world. So how can we get ahead of the game?
By playing a game.
This course invites you to spend quality time in focused discussion of: the best features of our school that we wish to keep for the future; what our ideal future looks like; and, most importantly, what steps we can take towards our ideal. It provides you with tools to solve dilemmas and make decisions. The course will leave you with a simulation game for your school or schools to use again with your staff and other stakeholders.
FRANK CRAWFORD - How can I be a great teacher?
Wow. There’s a lot of advice around on this one. And we have standards for this kind of teacher and that kind of teacher. But do these standards relate to real life in the classroom? Everyone knows that if you want a great school, you need great teachers. So how can we all be great (or better) teachers? This course introduces you to a simple six-point structure for teachers to use when developing their own skills in the classroom. It covers issues such as planning backwards, using praise, asking great questions, demonstrating learning, and communicating success. The course aims to motivate teachers by taking part in fun but useful learning activities while reminding them of the key issues beyond the classroom in making your school a great school.
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FRANK CRAWFORD - How can we be a great school?
The point of self-evaluation is that schools take responsibility for their own improvement, because they know intimately how well they are doing, and what needs to be improved. That’s fine. There are lots of self-evaluation tools around, but they rarely go beyond an audit of what’s there. Or you can use the results of an audit simply to comply with national inspection guidelines. Neither alone will take you on the road from good to great. Nor can you rest on your laurels after an excellent inspection. Good teachers and headteachers know that. This course takes you beyond simple audit tools and considers self-evaluation from three perspectives – inward looking, outward looking and forward looking. Each perspective in turn has tools and approaches available that you can learn to use systematically so that you know comprehensively what it is you have to do to take your classrooms and school from good to great.
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TIM BRIGHOUSE - Moving our school from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Outstanding’ to ‘Great’
Research suggests that there is more difference within a school than between schools, although of course how a school is run makes a huge difference.
This half-day course is intended to inspire staff of a school or a group of schools about the characteristics and processes which lead to continual improvement whether from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘good’, ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ or ‘outstanding’ to ‘great’ with an initial focus on teaching, learning and assessment, followed by some reflections on how to optimise the impact of the school as a whole.
It aims to motivate staff, by reminding them of the values and practices which attracted them to make teaching their career and to speculate about what are the optimal approaches to teaching and shared leadership
