Autumn Term Roundup

ESP
What a term! So much has happened this autumn term we thought we would do a quick update before we head into the new year.

ESP have been very lucky to welcome new schools over the last few months, taking the total number of registered schools to 89. Their NQT support sessions have been a success and they are looking forward to developing these for next year. This month Keri and Sacha attended the Exeter University Teacher Recruitment event. It was great to talk to the next generation of teachers and receive such lovely positive feedback. ESP hope to have the opportunity to work with them next academic year.

ESP also have exciting plans to expand the office team and are currently recruiting a part-time administrator to join Keri and Sacha with arranging cover for the 89 schools. If you are interested or know someone who might be, more information about the role can be found on our website.

The autumn term has been a busy one for supply and ESP have reached a record number of bookings, covering almost 700 in November, their busiest month ever since starting ESP. We expect and hope this trend will continue in the new year as well.
We wish all our teachers, teaching assistants and colleagues in registered schools a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy the Christmas break everyone and we will see you in 2020!

CPD
It’s been a jam-packed autumn term for our CPD offering with over 500 delegates taking part across 23 courses. Notable events comprised our Inclusion Forum, Teaching & Learning Symposium and the first ever TSSW Literacy Conference which saw 124 delegates fill Exeter Racecourse to enjoy 3 keynote speeches and a variety of workshops by national and regional experts.

Our popular subject networks also continued to thrive with excellent attendances for Science, Maths, English, School Business Managers, Art, PE and Computing.
​
Focus has already shifted to the Spring term with plenty of courses arranged for colleagues of all disciplines. The Technology Conference will take place on Friday 7th February at Tiverton Hotel and feature a keynote speech and workshop from Mr P (Lee Parkinson). New courses will also launch including TA Training, Trauma Informed Training and a Primary PSHE Network. Here’s to another successful term!

ITT
We’ve recently been meeting with our new Spring Term mentors to train them in our programmes – it has been great to have such positive feedback around our efforts to reduce paperwork and spend more time on pedagogy. We hope that our focus on evidence-informed teaching practices is seen as valuable and desirable by our partner schools. We aim to train newly qualified teachers who have a grounding in cognitive science and the impact of effective teaching strategies. We look forward to seeing our trainees implement these in their new settings after the Christmas break. We would like to thank our ‘Home Schools’ who have supported our trainees so generously with their time and advice this term.

The training sessions which are delivered by our SLEs and other highly skilled teachers from your schools have run some exciting and innovative sessions for the students. Feedback from trainees has been excellent – they have found the experience of learning from practising colleagues so beneficial. Thank you to all those who have delivered training sessions this term.

Our trainees were very excited to attend the Literacy Conference – it was a great opportunity to learn from nationally recognised speakers as well as network with our local colleagues! We are looking forward to the IT and Early Years conferences next term.
Recruitment for next year’s ITT programmes has started successfully after several interview days already. We have further interview rounds for January and are delighted with the quality of applications.

Our cohort of trainee teachers have been a fabulously supportive group and we enjoyed sharing a festive lunch with them on their last training day as well as a fun Secret Santa! Thank you to all those who helped organise this. Thank you also to Ana, our student representative, who attended the South West Teacher Training Management Board meeting in order to give feedback on behalf of the trainee cohort.
​
We hope that all our hard-working trainees and school-based colleagues have a restful and very happy Christmas. Thank you for all you do to ensure that our ITT programme continues to run smoothly and successfully - we feel very excited about 2020!!