Yesterday I met with some of the associate language teachers and tutors in Primary Languages Network. During a break ,a reluctant photo was taken of us all. The photo is however a powerful picture of the mix of qualified teachers within our Primary Languages Network. Here you can see 9 of the current 13 associate teachers,soon to be joined by 4 more colleagues for the academic year 2016-17.
My colleagues are marvellous - just like so many of you who will read this blog post too. They work in a range of schools, supporting subject coordinators, schools where other teachers are non-specialists, helping me to create materials and train teachers and on a weekly basis take simple lesson plans and make the learning exciting for the children they teach!
What strikes me when I look at this picture though is the power and quality and range of experience the people in the photo represent. On a day to day basis you tend to forget this and as some of us have worked together for 8 or 9 years now, it is easy to forget the experience amongst us.
Every week the team works with a minimum of 6,500 children in KS2. The team works in KS1 aswell, so it is more children actually. (I found this figure quite amazing as I worked it out!). Next academic year the associate teacher team will work in 44 schools within the network. In the 2016-17 team there are 10 primary classroom teachers with a degree in languages ,7 of whom have a PGCE Primary with a languages specialism,4 secondary MFL teachers .one of whom still works Cross Phase and all four now have language teaching experience from KS1 right through to A Level., 4 native speakers,3 primary language subject coordinators and 2 colleagues with training in EYFS. Most of my colleagues work in classrooms where the teachers are present too and the intention is to upskill the teachers as well as the children. It makes quite a team really and everyone not only brings so much to the table but also wants to move forward and progress with their learners.I see evidence of team teaching ,of colleagues leading staff CPD and bespoke learning being created for teachers who want to make links across the curriculum.The team also already helps me to make their knowledge and experience available to all members of the network not just schools where the team works
Yesterday during our meeting we discussed Summer 2 in KS1 and KS2.Five of the colleagues shared their workshop preparation for our conference.We all looked at the 12 DfE Attainment Targets and discussed assessment tools and our proposed new tracking system.We considered how we tweak and enhance our Ready Made SoW and discussed how we can move forward with the work we do upskilling , supporting and sharing classroom quality practice with colleagues.
Normally in blog posts I suggest ideas and give solutions or approaches to primary language teaching and learning , but today I just ask ..... so how do we harness this huge potential and take it forward to benefit so many more?
