Keynote: Keeping it going: ‘it’ – the what, why and how of maintaining momentum
This talk takes the title of the symposium as a starting point. I take the ‘it’ in the title to mean teacher development or learning and I will briefly discuss how I understand this process. I will talk about why (and how) ‘keeping it going’ can benefit not only the children you teach, but you too (and not only professionally but also personally). We will then explore and list the conditions needed for teachers to be able to engage in it (which projects like this do for you), and suggest some practical way you can create those conditions for yourself and manage your own development process, once your mentor moves on.
Workshop: Teachers Becoming Mentors
If you have been convinced by arguments in the keynote, you might like to learn some of the knowledge and skills that mentors draw on when working to support a mentee teacher’s development. This should enable you to, for example, engage in ‘peer-mentoring’ or start a peer-support group more effectively. The workshop is likely to include the topics/issues of ‘noticing’, ‘scaffolding’ and ‘informed reflective practice’, but, and as with mentoring, I will take my lead from you.