A Roundup of the #LearningFirst Event at Bath University Hosted by @BeyondLevels
Sept 23, 2016
Life After Levels attended the Beyond Levels #LearningFirst event yesterday at Bath Spa University and what a day it was. Teachers from up and down the country once again came together to tackle the problem of the removal of national attainment levels by sharing what they’ve been doing and how they’ve done it.
If you aren’t familiar with #LearningFirst, it’s a community of professionals who are determined to devise and share strategies for high quality teaching. By holding events like this that delve into theories, strategies and give real life examples of what’s working.
Tim Oates opened the day with a speech to get everyone thinking about what they were really trying to achieve and about giving our kids an in depth education. It was insightful, mind-opening and really got the day off to the perfect start. You could really feel the desire in the room from everyone involved to improve. If we weren’t already, we were defiantly now all on the same page. Tim continued to talk about teachers re-creating levels, going back to their comfort zones and how exams had become easier over the past 40 years.
Mary Myatt held a speech following this on how to ‘edit the cheap praise’ while Carolyn Robson’s speech on how ‘Transition is a lot more than just data’ discussed how assessment needs to enable school leaders to feel confident about accountability. Both of these presentations made everyone think about how they were assessing pupils and how feedback could be used in a wider context.
We’re really looking forward to the next #LearningFirst conference in Wolverhampton on 1st October, you can register for the event by being part of the #LearningFirst community here. If you want to find out more about what went on in the day (or about future conferences) you can visit the Beyond Levels website or search #LearningFirst on Twitter.
By Gareth Davies - MD of Frog Education and founding partner in Life After Levels
