An Amazing Week!

This week has been amazing.  I spent two days down in London this week taking in some fantastic CPD experiences at The Bett Show and the Whole Education Annual Conference.  I was at Bett with the brilliant company I work with, Tute, because we were exhibiting at the show and were also finalists for an award in the category of ICT Tools for Learning, Teaching and Assessment.  We were announced as the 2017 winners on Wednesday night and this is a huge professional achievement for everyone at the company-I was absolutely ecstatic, of course!

Whilst at the exhibition show, I got to see lots of different examples of fabulous innovations in the education field and, in particular, how edtech is being used to evolve pedagogy further. My personal highlight though was getting to meet with Sarah Grant from LRTT.  When I had my interview for the Uganda fellowship, it was Sarah with which I spoke first.  I was immediately enthused by her insights on the programme and the conversations we had about research in the programme. It was so great to spend an hour chatting through ideas and possibilities whilst benefiting from Sarah's experience.  She's so passionate about the charity and the programme and it's infectious.  We were talking about the possibilities of using Tute's Learning Cloud to help deliver training to fellows prior to their taking part in their LRTT programmes or even setting up sessions with the local teachers in LRTT locations between fellowships.  The scope could be enormous, especially given that LRTT fellows are joining from across the globe now.  

Sarah Grant and I catching up at Bett 

What I hadn't anticipated was my boss, Tute's CEO, offering Tute's resources to LRTT gratis.  This is yet another reason why I love what I do at Tute.  At its core, this company is run by good people who care about the right things.  Tute's purpose has always been "to make the best teaching available to all, irrespective of location or background."  I've always loved this philosophy, but I viewed it nationally or perhaps, just within the scope of Tute delivering lessons, but never has this purpose been more clear to me than in this amazing act of kindness.  I'm not sure when I was most proud of the company I work for this week; when we picked up the Bett Award trophy or when Sean committed to a cause that has found its way securely into my vocational heart as a teacher.  Thank you Tute.

The next day was also an inspirational day for me.  I had been asked to give a presentation at the Whole Education conference, also being held in London this week.    This was the first time that I had heard of Whole Education, but I am so delighted to have discovered them!  They are an organisation of individuals who are committed to helping students gain a WHOLE education, not just one that is restricted to purely academic achievement, to making learning more relevant and engaging and to revolutionising the way teachers and leaders work together to achieve better outcomes for students and staff despite the current challenges surrounding the institutes of education in our country.  

I met and listened to some superb people during my short time at the conference.  I really wish that I could have stayed much longer to absorb even more of the wisdom on offer and will most definitely aim to do so in the future.  It was a packed programme and I took so much away from the speakers I listened to, but also from the delegates I struck up conversations with during the breaks and lunchtimes.  It is so refreshing to talk and listen to people who share my own views of education; that our purpose is to do what is best for our students, not solely in terms of academia, but in every sense.  This is why I became a teacher.  My presentation allowed me to share with other passionate teachers, who are looking for ways to provide the best for their students, a little of what I have learned about teaching students online whilst at Tute. It felt great to be able to share a little bit of our pedagogy and how the technology we use can enhance learning, to give something back.

As I was travelling home on the train, I sat with three of my Tute colleagues.  We were absolutely exhausted, but we couldn't stop talking.  We talked incessantly the whole journey home about all the fantastic ideas and inspiration we'd absorbed over our time at Bett and Whole Education!  We were too tired to think about what to eat for dinner or walk another step, but our excitement for what we'd experienced was inextinguishable. 

These experiences were amazing, but it also reaffirmed something else; travelling to Uganda to work with other teachers, both the fellows who (like me) are currently frantically fundraising to get to be there to be a part of the programme and the local teachers who choose to attend, will be enormously rewarding.  We will all be there with a shared passion-the passion to teach and learn and to do our best for our students.  What the past few days has taught me is that there is no one better to spend time developing your skills and honing your craft with than other like-minded teachers who love what they do and who never want to stop learning how to do it better.  I am so excited about the Uganda fellowship, the potential it holds, the ways in which we will all develop and refine our abilities and the impact that will have on those who matter the most-our students.

I am still in need of your support to get there. Please do help if you can.  My GoFundMe page has reached its first target of £500, but I've still got a long way to go. You can donate as little-or as much-as you are able! Thank you.

To review the Bett Award Winners, take a look here:

http://bettawards.com/

To find out more about Whole Education, please visit their website:

http://www.wholeeducation.org/home/

The Generosity of Good People

This week I have been really lucky to receive some fantastic toy donations from wonderful friends and family for my forthcoming Toy Fair fundraisers.  I’ve been really surprised and delighted by how wonderfully generous people are.

There have been donations from my close friends and family, which I might have anticipated, but there have also been donations from other people; school friends who I haven’t seen in years, colleagues, even complete strangers who I’ve never met.  My daughter’s play school (Katz Kindergarten) have offered to help collect donations and our childminder, Lindsay (Precious Angels Childcare), is also drumming up support on my behalf.  I’ll be hosting the Toy Fairs on two dates at Funky Town Play Centre in Chester, who are allowing me to use their premises without charge and who are promoting the event at the venue. Even extended family members of friends are being harangued into support on my behalf.

I’ve also started planning for a family fun day fundraiser in March and already have two bands (Off The Record and The Nigelles) lined up to play without taking a fee and I’m sure they will help to make the day a success.  Other donations, just as valuable have been from my family and friends who are helping out by looking after Ellie whilst I am actually in Uganda. 

It’s not an easy time of year to attempt fundraising; most people are a bit skint in January (I know we are!) and people are having to watch how they spend their pennies, but I’ve had £460 in donations at the time of writing and lots of friend and family have pledged further support to come.

Whether monetary, volunteering skills or giving time, all donations have been hugely generous and very kind.  It’s only early days and I know that I will have to continue to ask for your help and support over the coming months, but I just wanted to say thank you for all the generosity you’ve shown me and the Uganda project so far.  It is truly, very much appreciated.

If you have any toys you’d like to donate for the toy fair or skills that could be useful for a family fundraising day, please do give me a shout!

If you’d like to donate, please go to the GoFundMe page.

And if you’re free on 15^th or 22^nd February, please do come along!

Thank you.

“So, why are you doing this then?”

This week has been really exciting.  I’ve been checking out flight times and making an appointment for my vaccinations.   Operation Uganda is starting to feel like a reality, especially as the news spreads and more and more people are aware of it.  That was massively helped when the local papers the Chester Chronicle and Ellesmere Port Pioneer ran a story on the trip.  Take a look!

However, quite a few people have seemed more than a little surprised by my decision to take part in the programme and accept a fellowship place.  This seems to be for two reasons:     

1. That I am leaving my little girl for a whole month.
2. That I’m being given leave from work to go.

My husband, Ellie and I.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the prospect of being away from Ellie does scare me. Anyone who knows me will know that she is the centre of the universe for me and being apart seems near-impossible in some ways.  I know that she will be brilliantly looked after by her Daddy, her grandparents, our brilliant childminder who Ellie adores and my wonderful friend Jenny (who is near enough family) is also being amazing and helping out too.  Ellie will no doubt be spoiled rotten whilst I’m away and be having the time of her life, but I am scared by how much I will miss her.  One month away from Ellie will be tough, but it’s doable. I will manage because I keep reminding myself that ‘it’s not a good enough reason not to do it!’ and because a month that is a relatively small sacrifice for me has the potential to do so much good for other people.

Being given the leave from work seems unusual to my teacher friends. Time off in term time has always been a big NO-NO in the school sector!  Teaching for Tute has afforded me more freedom and support than is realistically possible in a school situation.  Undertaking my doctorate, spending more time with my daughter and attending educational events has been possible in an alternative teaching environment and for that I am truly grateful. 

With these two matters cleared up, most people have asked why it is that I’m doing the programme and what I hope to get from it?  So I figured this was a good place to answer those questions.  

Everyone is aware of the need to deliver teacher training in developing countries.  That is fundamentally why I am going.  After all this time teaching and developing my craft as a teacher and studying as an educationalist, I think I can help; I have the right skill set to do this and to do it well.  I want to help because I know I can.  BUT I’d be lying if I said this was a totally selfless undertaking with nothing but altruistic motivations. I do hope to gain something, somethings in fact, by doing this too.

Firstly, I hope to learn whilst I am away.  My whole life has been about learning; learning to learn, learning to teach, learning to facilitate learning in alternative ways, learning to develop pedagogy and learning to enhance practice. This is what I hope to continue to do whilst I am in Uganda.  Although the aim of the programme is to lead teacher training overseas, I believe there is a lot for me to learn there too.  I won’t be leading the training alone.  There will be a group of fellows and we will devise and deliver the training as a group.  The fellows will be from different schools, different countries and will have different training and experiences. I will be able to learn immeasurably from the other fellows on the programme.  What will their teaching and learning approaches be?  How will they differ from my own? What will we develop together where our expertise is combined?

Perhaps even more so than from the other fellowship teachers, I am excited about what I can learn from the Ugandan teachers.  In Uganda, there are undoubtedly limited resources and this permeates every aspect of education; from the physical sparseness of the classrooms to the number of students in a class; from the educational materials available to the training and qualifications of the teachers themselves.  This is not an easy teaching environment in which to learn and develop your skills as a pedagogue and, yet, these teachers have done so.  Without rafts of textbooks, reams of learning tools that we take for granted in the UK or even the basics like ample writing implements to go around, these teachers can and do teach.  What wisdom can they share?  When all the carnival of teaching is stripped bare, what remains? What is really important and useful to teachers when they have little else but their own experience to draw on? 

Between us all, Ugandan teachers and fellowship teachers combined, a unique opportunity will be available to me.  I will join a community of practice where we are able to garner insights into the skills of teaching and facilitating learning in a context where issues like the latest Ofsted buzz phrase or the specifics of exam rubric are diluted and the focus becomes what I have always believed that it should be, how can we best support our learners?  I don’t know the answer to this question.  I don’t know if we will find that we share universal ideas or that our perspectives will be grossly at odds with each other.  Is teaching the same skill set, regardless of Geography, location and aesthetics of your classroom, resources, syllabus, culture and an infinite number of variables I have yet to even consider? Or will I find that what works in the UK does not work in Uganda and be challenged to devise alternatives?  I don’t know, but I hope to learn this and more whilst I am away and I hope that I am able to capture it, write about it and share it with others too.  I hope to carry out some level of research whilst I am there because it is too good and too exciting an opportunity not to.

Uganda sunset- a pic from my team leader this week

Finally, I hope to see a beautiful part of the world that I don’t think I could otherwise get to see.  I never took a gap year or travelled beyond a regular holiday.  I was too busy studying and working for that and it never really occurred to me to take a year out or anything.  It was still a relatively new concept when I was preparing for uni and, if I’m honest, I was an enormous geek-still am-and couldn’t wait to get to a university and learn more.  But, I do sometimes regret that a little.  I love studying and all that I’ve learned so far.  I love my career and that it has brought me to a point where opportunities like this are within my reach.  Beyond all else, I love my family and had I not trodden the path I did, I may not be the wife and mother I am today.  But this world is amazing, so missing out on exploring some of its further reaches would be a terrible shame.  This is a chance for me to do that.  To see somewhere different, to explore its culture and to meet people that have an understanding of the world that is different to and might challenge my own.  I don’t imagine there will be a lot of time for sightseeing, but I will be immersed in a culture and taking in my surroundings every step of the way and that really is exciting. 

I am lucky that my employers at Tute are supporting me and I am so very lucky that my husband, family and friends are enabling me to take part in this and to finish on one final update on winning Ellie around to me going away, I should let you know that I think I am getting there.  This week she has made three requests; I bring back presents (obviously), I take a photo of a lion (not too close up…I hope) and that she can be the Mummy whilst I’m away (sounds reasonable to me!).

So now, I just need to keep the fundraising going.  January sucks as a time to fundraise, but I’ll keep going and, with your help, hopefully get there.  

Hopefully…

If you're feeling generous, any donation is a huge help! Here's the link to my GoFundMe page!

Asking People for Money...

The very title of this blog makes me cringe. I hate it. It makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. I feel like if you could physically see me now, you would see that I’m squirming in my chair. This was not something I had anticipated when I embarked on the Uganda project.  Honestly, I’d nonchalantly figured it would be easy.  It’s such a good cause, of course people would be willing to donate.  The problem is, I’d overlooked the fact that I’d have to ASK them to donate. I don’t know how I’d thought the whole fundraising thing would work.  I’d said to my husband, when we discussed the money required for the programme, “it’s fine, I’ll fundraise!”

The thing is, I’ve never done any fundraising before.  I’ve done Macmillan coffee mornings, I host one every year at work, but this is a widely publicised event and people pop their donations in the box without me asking them to.   I’ve done a couple of the Race for Life runs for Cancer Research, but the sponsorship pages just went up and people donated.  I also didn’t have a huge target and raised the money quite easily.  This is different.  This is a lot of money and I have to ASK for it.

I’m sure it’s a cultural phenomenon.  Us Brits don’t like talking about money.  We don’t discuss our wages or the exact price we pay for our cars or houses.  If I go for a meal with my parents, we don’t discuss how much the bill was.  We just seem to have this idea that talking about money is somehow rude or disrespectful.  We’re not comfortable asking for money.

This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum.  How do you raise money without asking for it? Simple answer: you don’t!  Unfortunately, there is no money tree shedding notes in my garden and no fairy godmother offering me plane tickets, so instead of trying to avoid it, I’ve decided to give you some really good reasons for WHY I am asking for your financial support as I embark on this fantastic project.

Firstly, I am asking for your donations so that I can be involved in a project that aims to fundamentally change students’ lives for the better.  I’m not asking for money for something frivolous or selfish, but for your support in helping to create a better standard of education in a developing country. Education is a right that we often take for granted in the UK.  We take our children to school and fully expect them to receive a high quality of teaching and learning that will give them access to opportunities and qualifications that will help them to lead financially stable and ultimately fulfilling lives.  This sort of education is not available to everyone, but it should be! 

That’s why I am doing this.  I want to be involved in something that is I bigger than any pride I might have over asking for money, something that is far bigger than just myself at all.  I want to be involved in ensuring students, irrespective of background or location, receive a high quality and standard of education, so that they have access to the all the wonderful opportunities our world has to offer.

Secondly, teaching has given me an amazing career and I really want to give something back.  Teaching is both the hardest job that there is and the most rewarding.  I left the physical classroom three years ago with the ambition of completing my doctorate and finding out more about what makes teaching and learning as good as it can be.  I’ll admit, I had been worn down by the bureaucratic interferences in the classroom.  It’s not my intention to discuss that here, but I left wanting to find better ways to teach and learn and to make a difference for my students. 

Since working for Tute and teaching online, I’ve been given a truly unique opportunity to explore what works from a pedagogical perspective (methods and practices of teaching).  Not only will going to Uganda give me an opportunity to share what I have learnt about teaching and how to support students in making progress, but it will also give me the chance to explore this area further.  In Uganda resources are limited.  There teachers rely on their abilities as teachers, their pedagogy, more heavily than in other areas where they might have the luxuries of technology, text books and the raft of educational materials we might have elsewhere.  Not only will I be able to share my knowledge and experience with the teachers we will be helping to train, but I know that they will have a great deal to teach me as well!  Going to Uganda will no doubt make me a better teacher and a better researcher too.

The final reason I am asking you for money is perhaps the most challenging to put down on paper.  I am asking because I have to.  Unfortunately, I am not in a position to fund this programme solo.  I am asking because I need your help to make this a reality.  I am committed to going, passionate about the work and dedicated to the ideals of the programme, but without your help, I can’t do it.  My husband and I work full time, we have a modest house in Ellesmere Port and we are by no means wealthy.  I spend the last week before payday counting the pennies and adding up the cost of the shopping in the trolley to make sure I’ve got enough money to pay for it.  I don’t have savings.  I pay student fees from previous and my current studies and childcare fees so that I can go out to work.  One day I hope all this studying and hard work pays off and I have the sort of income where I can be the philanthropist that can afford to fund this sort of programme for other like-minded individuals, but I’m not there yet.  I need your help.

So there you have it.  It’s not my favourite part of the project, but I need to ask people for money to make it a reality.  If any of the reasons I’ve given have convinced you that this is a worthwhile project and you want to contribute to my fundraising efforts, please do!  If you are able to give even just a couple of pounds, that’s a huge help.  I’m organising a toy fair, a bake off and a fundraising evening over the coming weeks and will keep you posted, but if you’re interested in making a donation to help pay for the fellowship place, flights or resources, please visit my gofundme page.

Thank you for reading.