As you know, our Leadership+ offer launched late last year. Leadership+ is a series of one-off bespoke webinars which complement the work of Education Scotland’s leadership programmes, and we started this offer in December with webinars from Dr Karen Edge and Dr Simon Breakspear.

 We can now announce the speaker for our third session, and we’re delighted to share that it is Dr Paul Bloomberg! He will be joining us on Monday 24^th February, 4pm-5pm to share his webinar From People to Process: Advancing Agency through Complex Change.

 This session will focus on the development of capacity for inclusive and equitable approaches to leading learning. Change is inevitable, yet navigating it effectively in schools or organisations demands a balanced approach that harmonises the human experience with collaborative practices. By cultivating learner agency at every level, using asset-based approaches, individuals within the system can become active participants in shaping innovation rather than passive recipients, ensuring change is meaningful and sustainable by fostering ownership and adaptability. This one-hour webinar introduces the Seven Circle Model, a holistic framework for understanding and addressing the interplay between relational and technical aspects of change, all while keeping equity at the core.

We anticipate high demand for this event, so would encourage you to sign up quickly. If a number of you in your establishment want to sign up, then why not watch together, learn together and take forward your post-event plans together?

Please click here to register for a place at the webinar

Please note this session will not be recorded, but following the webinar Dr Bloomberg will record a 15 minute summary of his session, which will be housed on the Leadership resource page Education Scotland website.

Leadership+ is offered to anyone in a leadership role in Scottish education, across sectors (this includes classroom practitioners, ELC and CLD practitioners, middle leaders, and school, setting and system leaders). The aims are:

• to enhance leadership learning across pertinent themes
• to encourage critical thinking in leaders at all levels.

As part of our PLL Community of learners (past and present) you benefit from prioritised spaces at Leadership+ sessions, as we will advertise these sessions to you before we advertise more widely.

You may also be interested in the following events being delivered through BRL+ (linked to our Building Racial Literacy programme). The links below will take you to Eventbrite where you can find further information, and register to attend.

Tuesday 11^th February, 4pm-5.30pm

Angela Saini – Keynote and Q&A

Tuesday 11^th March, 4pm-5.30pm

Neil Spiers – Sometimes Doing Your Homework Isn’t The Priority

Wednesday 26^th March, 4pm-5.30pm

Jeffrey Boakye – Race, Gender and Power in Education

“What does it mean to be on track in ELC 3 or 4 in literacy and numeracy?”

The early years team are facilitating a session with ELC practitioners from 1.30pm – 3pm on Monday 24^th February 2025 in three locations across SBC to moderate professional judgements about being on track to achieve early level by the end of P1. Please click the link to find out more and sign up. https://forms.office.com/e/YJJNWSD0Ec

Bookbug Local Authority Steering Groups Spring Update

Bookbug training session dates will go live from Monday 3 February. Click on the link above for further information on:

• Bookbug Session Leader Training Full / Refresher
• Bookbug for the Home Training Full / Refresher
• Session Leader training

Our Building Racial Literacy programme is hosting 3 upcoming BRL+ webinars which are open to all educators and education leaders in Scotland. We would appreciate your help in sharing these among your networks. To help with this we have attached a pdf which has the Eventbrite registrations hyperlinked, and also QR codes so the poster can be printed and hung on a bulletin board.

BRL+ is a suite of standalone sessions from the Building Racial Literacy Programme Building Racial Literacy | Programmes | Professional learning programmes, webinars and events | Professional Learning | Education Scotland team. They are for all educators to learn more about racism and other experiences of inequalities, and how they manifest in education.

The upcoming webinars are as follows:

Tuesday 11^th February, 4pm-5.30pm

Angela Saini – Keynote and Q&A

Tuesday 11^th March, 4pm-5.30pm

Dr Neil Spiers – Reflecting on the Effects of Poverty in and out of the Classroom

Wednesday 26^th March, 4pm-5.30pm

Jeffrey Boakye – Race, Gender and Power in Education

We request that everyone registering to attend an online event via Eventbrite take a moment to review our Online Code of Conduct.

Climate Ready Classrooms – Inspire Learning Live Lesson Programme – Supporting Schools with Learning for Sustainability experiences and British Science Week – Calling all Primary 6 pupils and their teachers.

Climate ready classrooms for Primary Schools is a series of workshops and activities, delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful and ScotDec. It is delivered to the whole of the Scottish Borders at the same time via Teams. By taking part pupils will gain an understanding of the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis and take action to address these issues in their own way. Aimed at Primary 6 (but composite classes can take part too) The series of three workshops are on Wednesday 26th February, 5th March and 12th March (9.30am-10.00am). Teacher information session Monday 24th February 2.00pm – 3.20pm (during in-service day). Please nominate one or more teachers who will be joining from your school/s and enter their information into this form. They will be sent further information and asked to save the dates. Nominate HERE Any questions please email Helen.orde@scotborders.gov.uk     https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-ready-classrooms/

When – 13th May 9.30am-11.45am

Venue – Inspire Building, Tweedbank

A practical session which moves through the three following questions:

• What are the prevalent views of masculinity amongst many of our young people?
• What socio-cultural factors are shaping these views?
• What evidence-based strategies can we employ to challenge regressive, dominance-based models of masculinity and promote a healthier, more aspirational understanding of what it can mean to ‘be a man’ in today’s world.

The training empowers staff to approach topics often considered sensitive and taboo within the male world (mental health, the impact of pornography, online influencers etc) but also helps to bring back the joy of masculinity and the potential of our gender to counter the overwhelmingly negative social narrative around masculinity.

Target Audience – All Pastoral Staff

Please note the date of the next Middle Leaders Engagement day. Agenda and how to book will follow shortly.

Learning through Landscapes are now offering a fully funded online Nurturing Nature: Family Learning in Local Greenspace course to support any practitioners  to learn more about the approach.

Nurturing Nature is a play project that uses outdoor free play in areas of local greenspace as an early intervention strategy to support the wellbeing of pre-school children.

Nurturing Nature – Family Learning in Local Greenspace