INSET

Following the Government’s suggestion that schools take Friday 18 December as an INSET day to reduce the impact of school based staff contact tracing over Christmas, the Greenshaw Learning Trust is hosting a National Inset Day.

Most schools use formative assessment throughout the year, and then have some sort of test at the end as practice for SATs. This data-handling may be done via a commercial system, a tracking system they have created in-house, or through one of the paper-based approaches that many schools are still using. It doesn’t matter which method you choose, but it does matter how the data is being used.

This is the second part of budgeting team activities. Once you have established eight-to-10 budgeting ideas for next year, now the hard part begins. If you have done the team activities with fidelity, then everyone will feel a part of the process. Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to get their way, and you will not be able to please everyone.

Inset days are often criticised, with both teachers and parents finding them an annoyance. Jane Basnett, Downe House’s head of Modern Foreign Languages, tells us why Inset days need to be remoulded into something worthwhile.

September: So, the lovely, long, hot summer is over. Well, maybe not so hot, but lovely and long anyway. You have rested, recuperated and regrouped. You have done lots of reading for pleasure and reading for work and, if you are lucky, the two will have coincided. You have taken down old displays and planned for some exciting, interactive new ones. Your classroom is ready for action. Lessons are planned and you have had time to let the creative juices flow and design some great new resources. You personally are raring to go, as you have managed to get some down time over the holidays. A few weeks cycling through the Loire, or camping somewhere on Britain's beautiful coastline or perhaps a staycation taking in all the sites you never get round to seeing. Yes, you are ready to come back and face the new term. All you have to do now is get through those first days back, including the dreaded Inset.

On Friday 28th of September we finally launched our iPad trial to all staff. There were only about three weeks to organise the event, but the whole thing went very well. Staff left excited, inspired and full of ideas. It really was an outstanding day!

The Build Up

After the summer holidays, I came back to school with the exciting prospect of our iPad trial. However, I realised how much work there was to do. Planning the launch to HoDs, as well as organising a whole school INSET, was pretty stressful. Luckily, the Assistant Head (teaching and learning) was amazing and really helped organise everything.

The 'iPad Journey' continues at Spring Cottage Primary School with the introduction of 16 iPads in Key Stage 1, 16 iPads in Key Stage 2, both with a syncing/charging trolley, and 63 iPod touches for children in Year 6.

With the iPod touches, iPads for both Key Stages set up, and Apple TV installed in each classroom, it was time for another staff training session, this time focusing on meeting the needs of a 21st century classroom. I began the staff training session by looking at the skills needed to be 21st century learners and the skills they would need to be successful in the future.

How can staff evaluate INSET training and CPD courses? We link to proformas for evaluating different aspects of CPD, such as: taking practice back; Guskey’s ‘five levels of CPD evaluation’; and outcomes for pupils. We also link to an example INSET training policy.

Taking practice back into schools

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council (MBC) has a continuing professional development (CPD) evaluation sheet for schools.

It includes spaces to set out four objectives for the activity. These can be graded as outstanding, good, satisfactory or inadequate.

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