Why staff development is so important.

It’s such a gift to be working in education with dedicated professionals. Yesterday I was lucky enough to witness an extraordinary thing: two colleagues delivering a session on naughty learning to the Portsmouth Royal Geographical Society network meeting.

What was fantastic is that both Jo Debens (@GeoDebs and Microsoft Innovative Teacher) and Lisa Whiting (@geogwhiting) had put their own spin and development on the concept. This resulted in some truly awesome learning outcomes for young people.

The event made me reflect on the role of middle leaders. I try to encourage originality, creativity and total deviation from schemes of work. I like to think that I’m not precious about ‘my’ curriculum (after all, the curriculum is owned by the staff, students, parents, carers…). Staff are the bedrock and pillars of a school – without investing in them, a school just can not achieve.

Thank you Jo and Lisa for the very proud moment.

Readers of this blog can also catch both at this year’s Geographical Association’s Annual Conference in Guildford.

I’ll write up the session which also started Stuart Ball from Microsoft’s Partners in Learning, later on.

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