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Pan London Professional Development Quality Mark - magazine article

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St. Ursula’s Convent School in Greenwich has Training School status due to their ‘outstanding’ Ofsted inspection.
St. Ursula’s has been recognized as a centre of excellence and as such is the only Training School in the London Borough of Greenwich. Directors of Training School, Ms Lanzon and Ms Smyrk, have the responsibility of providing high quality professional development for all current staff and for new colleagues joining the profession.
The specialism will also provide continued professional development for all non teaching Associate staff at St. Ursula’s, delivering personalized and relevant training programmes. Collaboration with local schools and communities and outreaching to neighbouring boroughs is  high on the agenda.

‘The school has a continuous focus on improving teaching and learning and has made excellent use of training school status to promote and support teachers’ professional development and classroom practice. Teacher-led focus groups have promoted and begun to share best practice, with a strong emphasis on how to improve lessons from good to outstanding and on developing effective assessment strategies across all subjects.’

Training School hosts Greenwich NQT Conference

Working in partnership with the Greenwich borough team, St. Ursula’s Training School hosted the first ‘newly qualified teacher’ conference of the academic year on Tuesday 11th October, 2011. Jack Kenny, Behaviour and Attendance Partnership Manager for Greenwich and our ‘outstanding’ MFL teacher, Vanessa Adika welcomed NQTs from several secondary schools across the borough to deliver a session on ‘Behaviour Management’. The afternoon programme covered the areas of: Behaviour in the broader context Subject specific myths Impact of school behaviour policies Ofsted – behaviour & the new framework Common behavioural challenges Effective responses Facilitating excellent behaviour
The delegates also participated in a role play session and they had the opportunity to discuss behavioural issues pertinent to their classroom situations.

A special thank you to Vanessa Adika for planning such an informative ses-sion and sharing good practice.
What were the best aspects of the course……
‘Good sharp activities and role play. Content really interesting’
‘Behavioural strategies that were very specific’
‘Very practical advice. Discussion of scenarios, role play. The best behavioural management session I have been to!’

St. Ursula’s Training School will be collaborating with Greenwich at the annual NQT Conference
on Friday 27th January, 2012.

We are holding two free information sessions on Wednesday 5th October (2:00pm-3:30pm and 4:00pm-5:30pm) for PD leaders, Headteachers and Senior leaders of all school, so you can find out more about the Professional Development Framework and how your school can achieve the Professional Development Quality Mark Award.

The Pan London Professional Development Framework was developed by PD leaders in London, in partnership with the London Centre for Leadership in Learning and the Training and Development Agency, to support the professional development of all colleagues in London's educational organisations.

The Quality Mark Framework can be used effectively by both new and established professional development leaders as an audit tool to personalise their own standards on professional development or to seek regional verification.

To book please contact Eirini Konstantinidou : e.konstantinidou@ioe.ac.uk
http://www.lcll.org.uk/pan-london-event.html

Assessment For Learning DAY!

Over the last two terms, Ms McDonald and Ms Smyrk have put together a Junior AfL Board. AfL stands for ‘Assessment for Learning’ and the aim of the group is to try and improve this throughout the rest of the school.
Currently, we have been working with teachers to find the most effective AfL techniques. For example, mini tests to reinforce learning and to help students and teachers know their strengths and weaknesses.
On the 6th of July 2011, the St Ursula’s Junior AFL Board met members of staff from St Thomas More School and pupils from The Ravensbourne School.
We met with the teachers from St Thomas More School to pitch the idea of an AFL Board in their school. We discussed with them our strategies for observing teachers for AFL strategies during lessons. We also discussed how the Junior AFL Board needed extensive training to carry out each observation effectively. The discussion was very informative for the staff at St Thomas Moore, and they considered all our ideas and were enthusiastic to put an AFL Board into effect at their school.
In the afternoon, 5 Ravensbourne students gave us a talk about AfL in their school; they focus on self-assessment, assessing themselves on behaviour, work and effort alongside their teachers.
As both schools had such different ideas it meant that by sharing them we have plenty of new ideas to use in the future
By Santana Knight and Katie O’Hara, 9 Fabian

Accredited Mentoring Stage 2

St. Ursula’s Training School hosted a Stage 2 Accredited Mentoring course on Saturday 16th October 2010, collaborating with neighbouring Training Schools Deptford Green, St. Michael’s & St. Thomas the Apostle & Woolwich Polytechnic. The course was presented by Liz Morrison from the University of Greenwich – an extension of our Training School Partnership work. Participants found the day both rewarding & inspirational, especially having the opportunity to work & discuss initial teacher training issues, mentoring techniques & professional teaching standards with colleagues from other schools. Congratulations go to Mrs Hadfield & Ms. Cascioli on receiving their certificates.

‘The course was led by University of Greenwich & focused on exploring effective strategies to support best practise for Beginning Teachers on their teaching placements. This was an excellent opportunity to share expertise with teachers from other schools’.

Mrs Hadfield, Head of Food Technology