SLS Professional Learning
We are delighted to announce the recommencement of SLS Professional Learning Programme. For the foreseeable future all our events will be delivered via webinars.
All PL events are open to members and non members.
All PL events are open to members and non members.
Join us for this exciting addition to our professional learning programme.
A series of three, stand alone, events being held during the month of March. You can sign up for each event at a cost of £35 or all three for £90.
Your Professional Association has throughout the current extraordinary situation been conscious of the significant challenges facing schools and school leaders. Since lockdown we have endeavoured to provide members with appropriate and pertinent support, advice and guidance.
As you move back to re-establishing your school as a place where young people can feel safe and are able to regain lost learning, we feel that it is critically important that we offer members a Professional Learning Programme that is responsive to and consistent with the challenges they face on the journey to recovery.
Building on our highly successful Professional Learning programme, but conscious of the impossibility, for many reasons, certainly in the immediate term, of colleagues attending meetings physically, we will deliver Professional Learning through the medium of Webinar.
Sessions will be hosted by SLS Professional Learning Manager Eileen Young and each Webinar will normally last for 90 minutes starting at 2.30 in the afternoon.
The first hour will be input from the presenters during which participants will have the opportunity to submit questions which will be answered during or in the final 30 minutes of the session.
Our first event is being offered at the introductory cost of £35.
A recording of each session will be forwarded to you after the event
School Leaders Scotland is the prime provider of leadership specific professional learning in Scotland. The quality of our programme has been established over the past 15 years and is both recognised and accredited nationally.
In September of 2019 our programme was awarded General Teaching Council Scotland’s Professional Learning Award for Organisations. In their evaluation of our professional learning programme GTCS identified the following key features:
Session 1: Great Learning and Teaching in an online classroom
What makes good Learning and Teaching in the context of remote/digital delivery?
The first event in the series hears Bruce Robertson, Headteacher at Berwickshire High School and author of ‘The Teaching Delusion’ giving an illuminating overview before leading activities and discussion on the topic. Following Bruce, Principal Teacher of Pedagogy at Berwickshire High School, Derek Huffman, provides an insight into the challenges faced by teachers in making it happen.
Chaired by Campbell Wilson, Head Teacher of Peebles High School and Vice-President of SLS.
Session 2 : “Takeaway Tips”
The second in the series will further illuminate Bruce and Derek’s session with some top ‘takeaway tips’ – of benefit to HTs, DHTs and PTs alike. An opportunity to share in the practice of three outstanding practitioners on their lockdown journeys. Sarah Clark (2020 Digital Innovator of the Year Nominee, (Queen Anne HS, Dunfermline)) will focus on what she’s been up to in order to sustain the creative approaches she’s become renowned for. Derek Paterson (DHT at Larbert HS in Falkirk, who leads on ‘Connected Falkirk’ (1:1 device strategy)) will show how his teachers have been harnessing technology to ease the marking load whilst increasing the quality of feedback and, finally, Katrina Price (PT Modern Languages at Linwood HS, Renfrewshire) will demonstrate how the tools she’s using to redefine her teaching approaches, can be used across the curriculum in any context. There’s a lot to learn from lockdown – but that’s for the next one…
Chaired by Jon Reid, Rector of Larbert High School and Vice-President of SLS.
Session 3 : Lessons from Lockdown
Our final event asks : What changes were made to school practices out of necessity during lockdown, and the initial recovery period, that we may want to keep in place longer term? Hear the views of senior leaders from a range of schools across the country.
Join Lyndsay McRoberts (Headteacher of Duncanrig Secondary School, South Lanarkshire), Greg McDowall (Headteacher of West Calder High School, West Lothian) and John Rutter (Headteacher of Inverness High School, Highland) as they reflect on their learning from lockdown.
Chaired by Allyson Dobson, Head Teacher of Dalkeith High School and President of SLS
During the last few weeks, Education Scotland carried a national overview of remote learning. Its purpose was :Learn what is working well and share this widely to celebrate success and
support consistency in the quality and effectiveness of delivery of remote
learning.
Surface the challenges and/or issues so that these can be addressed, either
locally or nationally, as appropriate.
Identify what further assistance is required to continue to improve the delivery
of remote learning so that relevant support can be provided at local and/or
national level.
Hear from Guch Dhillon (Head of Scrutiny Secondary Schools) about the national overviews of practice and next steps then from Head Teacher Lynne Hollywood (Johnstone High School), Deputes Kenny Manson (Queensferry High School) and Graeme Wallace (Forfar Academy) who will share some of the strategies they have been using.