I get the same question almost every day.

“How do you support teachers with technology in their classroom?”

How best to go about creating the ideal school group? Peter Rubery is the executive principal/CEO of The Fallibroome Multi-Academy Trust in Macclesfield, Cheshire. We spoke with Peter to find out exactly how education can thrive through an MAT.

In over 40 years in education, I have been led by others, and I have led others. I have studied leadership, and I have experienced both good and poor leadership. I have worked for leaders, and worked with leaders. As a leader I have made mistakes and learnt from them, and I have learnt from the mistakes made by other leaders.

We all know our most inspiring teachers from school; they’re the ones that believed in you. They got you to where you are today, and that’s the quality you should compare to. So why does it have to be so hard finding the right teacher?

One of the most difficult things I found as a leader with responsibility for the use of iPads in the school was finding quality CPD for myself, as I was more often than not the person organising or delivering that training. People often ask me where I find out about the latest apps, technologies and other great technological tools. One such place is from great educators such as Joe Moretti, with whom (and several others) I’ll be co-hosting #ATI2017 in Malvern across 10th-12th April.

Learning is learning.
And good instructional design is key.
What’s good for students is good for teachers.
We are all learners.

During the past 20 years, I have been privileged to participate in some great professional development programmes. And some, not so great. I have led professional development where the teachers responded really positively and we saw direct impact on student learning. And some, not so much.

We know that successful students are those who are resilient, and there has been increasing amounts written about how to develop resilience in our students. There is lots of excellent advice, lots of good strategies, lots of excellent applications of Dweck’s growth mindset or Claxton’s building learning power. But I think there is one simple thing that we can do in class every day that will go a long way to helping students become more resilient, or at least giving them permission to build the confidence and perseverance needed.

A series of curriculum-linked resources and new teacher training from the education charity Into Film invites teachers and students to explore issues relating to online safety using the magic of the moving image. Created, respectively, for Key Stage 2 (or equivalent), Key Stage 3 and 4, and Key Stage 5, the charity’s Staying Safe Online resource – featuring teachers’ notes and Powerpoint presentations - uses carefully selected films and related activities to help educate young people on how to use technology safely and respectfully, in keeping with the Safer Internet Day 2016 theme ‘Play Your Part for a Better Internet’.

Surrey-based company Conversor has brought together the knowledge of assistive technology experts and teachers to create Notetalker Classroom Assistant. This resource brings together the Notetalker app and Notetalker Edit software, while offering staff the ability to integrate with their School’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).