David Rogers

This is the final post of six reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   This post will provide an overview the closing keynote session by Bill Rankin . The session definately came away with the prize for most entertaining, and in the graveyard slot this was needed.  Especially for people like me who have trouble concentrating at the best of times!  I’m going to focus on some of the main themes that I took away from the session, and my thoughts about them.  I’m not certain about the scientific basis for some of this as I’m still following them up, however the points have created some interesting discussion.   The first thing that got me thinking was this slide.  In a nutshell, young people’s brains are inactive during class.  I tried to link this to my own experience.  Of course, the immediate reaction is to dash the notion on the rocks of sillyness.  However, think beyond my...

This is the fourth of six posts reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   This post will talk about Bill Lucas’ keynote session. I didn’t make too many notes from the second keynote session.  I have to admit to being more than a little sceptical when I’,m greeted by an ‘invite’ to sign up to a network for £500, but I kept an open mind.  The session was delivered in a contrasting style to the first and focused on ‘ Expansive Education’ .  I’m not going to talk about the network, but about the three things that I took away from the session. 1. The BayHouse educational journal I am currently Professional Tutor and have the CPD brief.  Coming across Bay House’s journal was a revelation.  This is something that I am following up, not least because the school is only a short stretch of water away from my own.  This could be an excellent way in which to engage and stretch teachers who are...

  This is the fourth of six posts reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   This brief post will focus on the ‘pre-event’. In my experience, there are two types of TeachMeet: those that have a local feel and those before big events that have a strange ‘out-of-body’ feel.  Happily, the TeachMeet held the evening before #TLAB13 was of the former variety.  The event had a few elements common to  #TMPompey that meant I came away with actual ideas that could be used in the classroom the following day.  These elements were: Hardly any tech only talks.  Both featured simple ideas linked to assessment and feedback and marking.  Many speakers didn’t even use the computers (only three at the pre #TLAB13 event).  This was really refreshing as the talks were focused on pedagogy rather than larger ideas that were product reliant.  The ideas could be (and have been) implemented wit...

This is the third of six posts reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   In this post, I give my overall thoughts about the event. At 5pm on Saturday 16th March, I found myself in the theatre at Berkhamstead School watching Wales (my team) smash England on a screen the size of a house.  Why is this important?  It’s the way in which the genius behind #TLAB13, Nick Dennis, paid attention to detail that made the day.  The most important fixture of the Six Nations rugby tournament is an annual right of passage.  The excellent company and way in which I experienced this year’s will stay with me for a long time. I’ll come right out with it.  I thought that #TLAB13 was epic.  Considering it’s version 1, it’s the best whole day of conference I’ve been to.  I remember saying yes to Nick when he asked me if I’d be interested in speaking as I was intrigued and impressed with the proposed model an...

This is the second of six posts reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   This post will provide an overview the first keynote session. Alistair Smith opened the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference on Saturday with a simple question and a call to arms.  He simply asked what got us up in the morning?  Also, what got us all together on a Saturday to learn more? The slides used have been made available here , and contain a number of useful models and ideas for school leadership.  The main points I took from the keynote were (as written, summarised and reflected upon in my analogue notebook): How much do we, as teachers, know the research?  If we are to ignore the ‘Ofsted Whispers’ and take back control of curriculum and pedagogy then we have a responsibility to understand the research that underpins teaching and learning.  This links to another session I recently attended where Neil Mc...

This is the first of six posts reflecting upon the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference held at Berkhamsted School.   This post will provide an overview of my talk focused on Geography: Inspirational Geography. Before I go too far, I must say that the proceeding geography talks by Carmel Greene and John Sayers were the best geography specific workshops that I have attended in a long while.  They were packed with practical ideas that were underpinned with sound theory and research, a key feature to the success of the conference overall.  But more on that later. It was with some apprehension that I followed these two speakers, making the finishing touches to what I wanted to talk about during the conference.  Although this may seem unorganised, in my defence I take this approach as it means it’s possible to weave the themes of the keynote speakers and other workshops I have seen during the day.  Thank you to the kind words both face-to-face and...