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What a pleasant afternoon I’ve just had. Some of the Chartered Teachers who have access to the Chartered Teachers Reunited area of Blackboard VLE meet for lunch every 6 months or so at the Riverhouse in Stirling and it is always a most civilised and convivial occasion. The food and service are excellent and affordable, the setting is relaxing and the location means that it’s within reasonable travelling distance for those from the North East as well as the Borders.

This time, we took forward our plans to form a Chartered Teacher Association, which will be very exciting. We have planned to get together in the near future to agree how the group might serve education and Chartered Teachers themselves. More detail to follow.

Follow this link to see the photos

http://www.flickr.com/gp/17778438@N00/5WK32y

Responding to sensible advice, I have withdrawn this post for now.

Thanks Don.

Rob Long is a Chartered Educational Psychologist  who brings lots of humour and commitment to his presentations. He had the audience hanging on his every word, gave away chocolate and gem stones and generally captivated us.

Things he said that I liked:

Attitude is everything

Fight fire with water

The problem is the problem not the child

Analyse, don’t personalise

I’ll try to remember all these when I have Primary 7 in front of me on Monday. I will.

Mick Waters:Making Learning Irresistible

Some of the things he said that I liked:

Events & experiences “outside” need to be brought into the classroom to be used. They are all part of learning and not “extra” curricular.

We test excessively and need to investigate alternatives, looking at the bigger picture, broadening the “curriculum”

To build a useful curriculum you have to start by deciding where you want to be in the end and work out how to get there.

We need to get the learning so that children want to have it.

Yes indeed.

It was the lively Mick Waters who used the term “binge thinking”, and I certainly feel as if I’ve been on a bit of a bender, nothing to do with the free drinks at Teachmeet. I’m so glad I went to that - partly because I learned loads, and partly because I feared I’d be out of my depth, but I wasn’t at all. The journey home took even longer than the journey there in real time but my head was so full of stuff it didn’t seem like it at all

What did I see? Mainly people. I saw big folk on the big stage like Michael Fullan, Stephen Heppell and Mick Waters. Small folk in packs effortlessly upstaging the adults, as they so often do. Friendly folk welcoming shy but keen fellow bloggers Brave folk standing up in front of their peers to share their experience and achievements. Truly motivational folk captivating their audiences.

I think it’s the 4^th time I’ve been to this event and it was the best by far!