Teaching Assistants' Events in Hertfordshire
Primary TA Conferences November 2009
'Developing Learning Skills in the Primary Classroom' - The Tapestry of WOW
Keynote speaker: Tim Benton, Independent Thinking Limited
Held on Tuesday 17th November 2009 and again on 18th November 2009
Hertfordshire Development Centre, Stevenage and at the Hilton Hotel, Watford
Delegates to the Teaching Assistant Conferences held in November were treated to an outstanding keynote speech from Tim Benton from Independent Thinking. Tim was entertaining, challenging and informative in equal measure. He was passionate that “if pupils can’t learn the way we teach, we need to teach the way they learn.”
He suggested “The 4Bs” (plus an extra one!) as a way of giving pupils strategies to use if they are stuck:
- Brain – use it! Think about different solutions.
- Book or browser – what can they tell you that is useful? But you still need to use your brain!
- Buddy/Best friend. Try working with someone else – two brains are better than one!
- Best guess - if you still don’t know, let’s see how close you can get. What’s the worst that can happen if you’re not quite right?
- Boss – the teacher and/or the TA (this is the bonus B!) Tim talked about the need for the teacher and the TA to be “co-educators in the classroom” – apparently in India all TAs do the same training as teachers!
Workshops followed including one from Tim Benton, who expanded on his keynote and how to develop learning with pupils with a variety of learning styles. Kate Kellner and Steve Emmett (Primary Strategy) provided workshops on developing primary maths, an Early Years workshop was provided by Liz Stratton (EY Consultant) and Val Hazel (Achievement and Inclusion Advisor) a workshop for developing independence with SEN Pupils. Thank you to all our contributors.
You can download Tim's presentation 'Thinking and Learning - The Creative Approach' for PowerPoint or as a PDF
Secondary TA Conference July 2009
'Learning, Revision and Motivation'
Keynote speaker: Jim Smith, Independent Thinking Limited
Held on Tuesday 14th July 2009
Hertfordshire Development Centre
Stevenage
This summer's conference was for all secondary teaching assistants. It aimed to provide them with useful and effective strategies to use in the classroom as well as practical examples of revision and sought to enable them to share good practice and ideas with others on the day.
Breaking from our normal conference pattern, this year we invited Jim Smith from Independent Thinking Limited to work with us all day. Jim's work has a strong emphasis on the practical, so by attending, delegates walked away with ideas to use the very next day. Those who were not working with exam year groups were able to use these strategies for effective learning in the classrooms, across the secondary age range.
You can download Jim's presentation 'Learning, Revision and Motivation' for PowerPoint or as a PDF
TA Conference November 2008
Mozart makes you smarter…but so does lots of other music. That was the message from the key speaker at the Teaching Assistant Conferences held recently in Stevenage and Watford. Nina Jackson, a practising music teacher and inspirational speaker, drew on both her research and her practical experience to show how music can be used – by teaching assistants as well as teachers – in many different ways in the classroom. Her message – “sound waves make brain waves” certainly made sense, as did the practical examples of how music can be used to motivate, stimulate, energise, focus, calm….and lots more. Delegates then enjoyed a number of exciting workshops which included a lively session with the Herts Music Service “Sing Up In Herts”, and an interactive drama workshop provided by Watford Palace Theatre
If you have ideas for workshops for our forthcoming Conferences, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Debra Parsall on 01438 844867 or debra.parsall@hertscc.gov.uk.
Nina Jackson, Independent Thinking Limited.
You can download Nina's presentation 'Practical Creativity' for PowerPoint or as a PDF
Secondary TA Conference June 2008
 Held on Monday 23rd June
Hertfordshire Development Centre
Wheathampstead
Key note speaker: Phil Beadle 'Secondary School Teacher of the Year 2004'.
'The country's most inspirational speaker' - The Times
June saw the first Hertfordshire
Secondary Teaching
Conference launched in lively
and occasionally “edgy” style
by Phil Beadle, Secondary
Teacher of the Year in 2004
and star of Channel 4’s “The
Unteachables”. Phil advocated
and practised a relaxed,
informal but pacy approach to
teaching and learning,
concentrating on his first love,
Literacy.
As well as much amusement
there were some very useful
tips. Phil spoke of his technique
of “inhabiting” the body
language of emotionally
distressed pupils – i.e. adopting
the same body language, but
then slowly changing to a
calmer and more relaxed pose – often the pupil will follow.
Delegates acted out Maths
equations, learned about “naked nouns” (nouns without
adjectives) and thought about
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
as “nine different ways of
praising pupils”.
In the afternoon delegates went
to one of four workshops:
Ten Things To Do In Ten
Minutes
(Jeremy Reynolds)
Mind, Body and Soul
(Bev Hannibal)
Using Media and Digital
Technologies to Develop Team
Work and Presentation Skills
(Liz Shapland)
Maths As You’ve Never Seen It
Before
(Sam Burns)
All the workshops were based
on doing things slightly
differently, and all were very
well received by delegates – our thanks to all the tutors. We
were blessed with a lovely
sunny day – a fitting farewell to
our work at Wheathampstead.
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