Falkirk’s Teaching for Deep Learning programme is now available to support school-based professional learning. This programme consists of 19 sessions focused on aspects of effective teaching which are essential to the promotion of deep learning in our pupils. The sessions are active, intellectually stimulating and designed to be experienced by collaborative groups of practitioners such as Teacher Learning Communities.
“Teaching Scotland’s Future” said that the “foundation of successful education lie in the quality of teachers and their leadership. High quality people achieve high quality outcomes for children.” Without a doubt what it means to be a teacher is being re-conceptualised. Enabling our teachers to operate as enquiring practitioners and encouraging their self efficacy is at the heart of this programme.
Trialling in a range of establishments this session has demonstrated how flexible the content of the programme is, and that there are varied ways in which it can be used. View these variations in the document at the end of this post and consider if any are useful to you as you self-evaluate and create your school improvement plans.
The programme was created by Susan Dyer, Head teacher at Bankier Primary School, Gillian Campbell, PE teacher from Braes High School and Sharon Wallace and Yvonne McBlain from our Curriculum Support Team. Colleagues across our service have helped the team revise and improve the programme and we have a team of 16 facilitators currently training to deliver it.
I am confident that the programme aligns with the recommendations of the Donaldson Review, the new suite of GTCS standards & Professional Update and our own Employee Review and Development process. I recommend it to you.
To discuss how this programme might support your School Improvement Planning in more detail, contact yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk . Click here to view a summary of programme sessions.
It is great to see that Andrew Sutherland, the Director Education, has endorsed this programme of study for professional learners.
The programme will never remain fixed but will evolve over time – as it should – to keep pace with current developments and new initiatives in education. It will also be adapted in line with evaluations submitted by participants and facilitators. Hopefully, this will ensure the programme remains relevant and valuable to its end users and to the education service.
The lion’s share of the work done so far to improve the programme has been undertaken by Yvonne McBlain and Sharon Wallace of the Curriculum Support Team. I would like to give them public recognition for their immense contribution to the success of this programme. I would also like to thank Anne Pearson for her unstinting support in this venture and Andrew Sutherland for his resounding endorsement.
Susan Dyer
Our staff have already had one session on HOTS and second session tonight. Two staff have been trained to delver this programme. Teaching staff consulted on six sessions for next session. This is a great resource that meets the needs of staff and creates great dialogue. Thanks to Susan and Yvonne for their work on this.
Linda-Anne
We have also chosen to begin next term with the HOTS. This is an excellent resource. Thank you to all the team who have put it together. I am looking forward to delivering these sessions.
Thanks for the positive comments so far. It is great to hear that this resource is valued, and I am really looking forward to seeing it being widely used. We are exploring the logistics of how to evaluate the impact of the programme on our pupils at the moment, as well as building the support system for it in Glow. We have 16 practitioners from across the authority training to become facilitators for the programme – some have already started their own TLC. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the programme with colleagues this session and hearing how they think it could make a difference in their school. Yvonne McBlain