NETSP is a partnership which was set up by the first teaching schools in the NE and Newcastle University’s North Leadership Centre, initially to deliver the first NPQH programmes. Its ethos has always been to support high quality professional development for the region, by the region’s best practitioners. This founding principle informed the decision to join the UCL Consortium to deliver the ECF, and we are so pleased and proud that we did. As Programme Director I have had the huge privilege of being involved in the whole process, from governance and programme development, to recruitment and training of facilitators. I have seen pretty much all aspects of delivery taking place aside from mentor meetings, and I have heard time and again how much teachers have valued the programme and how much it has aided professional dialogue and development in this most difficult of years. I have observed facilitators skilfully steer discussions with ECTs to develop their understanding of effective pedagogy, and I have listened to really thoughtful exchanges between mentors about the process of supporting an ECT who has had very little classroom practice as a result of training in a pandemic. Most of all I have seen the joy of teachers loving their job, of experienced practitioners sharing their wisdom, of the fulfilment that comes from knowing that this is really important work and it is being done well. Many of our facilitators have reflected on how much they would have liked this sort of programme at the start of their careers (me too!), and they are clearly still learning and relishing having accessible resources both in the framework and in the programme itself. I have been astonished at the energy with which they have approached their role, and the enthusiasm with which they have taken on yet another responsibility and commitment, and it has made me so proud to be part of this exceptional team. I know my colleagues in the other early roll out areas have had similar experiences, and I really hope the message is shared loud and proud that this is a profession which is embracing new learning and nurturing new talent.
Building on our successful bespoke programme delivered in 2016, The North Leadership Centre (NLC) and Newcastle University International Office have recently completed the delivery of a complex programme for 30 administrative staff from Xiamen University. The programme was titled Xiamen University Administrative Staff Development Programme, and the delegation was headed by Kevin Zhong. The aims of the programme were to get an overview of how Newcastle University functions, as well as to develop English language and leadership skills.
Dr Xenia Xu of the International Office and Francis Barber of the North Leadership Centre collaborated to ensure the programme’s success, and teams from both departments supported the provision of this programme. Delivery was also supported by a team of final-year student interpreters from the School of Modern Languages.
The delegates undertook a two-week English Language programme through the North Leadership Centre, supported by CELTA-qualified staff Eleanor Gordon and Mark Pearson from NLC, and Ilaria Spiga and Rob Thompson. As well as language, this aspect of the programme covered UK culture and focused on speaking and practical English.
English Language Teaching
The programme incorporated cultural excursions for the delegates including visits to local places of interest and trips further afield. The delegates were also able to explore Newcastle and the rest of the UK.
Cultural excursions
Delegates participated in a five-day programme in leadership with Dr Anna Reid of the North Leadership Centre, which covered a range of themes including trust, collaboration and communication.
Leadership with Dr Anna Reid
The programme included visits to a wide range of university departments, and our thanks go to those departments for their willingness to participate and the quality of input that they delivered for the delegates.
Clockwise from top left; Human Resources, University Finance, Sports Centre and Learning and Teaching Development Service
Keynote presentations were given by Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Day, Registrar Dr John Hogan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Engagement & Internationalisation) Professor Richard Davies, and René Koglbauer, Director of the North Leadership Centre. During the formal welcome and closing speeches, keynote speakers from both Newcastle and Xiamen Universities emphasised the value and importance that both institutions place on the continuation of this highly successful partnership.
Clockwise from top left; Kevin Zhong with René Koglbauer, Professor Chris Day, the full delegation and Dr John Hogan.
We all look forward to further future successes of this partnership, and hope to be able to welcome more delegates from Xiamen University in future.
Building on our successful bespoke programme delivered in 2016, The North Leadership Centre (NLC) and Newcastle University International Office have recently completed the delivery of a complex programme for 29 student counsellors from Xiamen University. The programme was titled Xiamen University Counsellors Development Programme, and the delegation was headed by Jason Wang.
The aims of the programme were to get an overview of how Newcastle University functions, as well as to develop English language and leadership skills.
Dr Xenia Xu of the International Office and Francis Barber of the North Leadership Centre collaborated to ensure the programme’s success, and teams from both departments supported the provision of this programme. Delivery was also supported by a team of final-year student interpreters from the School of Modern Languages.
The delegates undertook a two-week English Language programme through the North Leadership Centre, supported by CELTA-qualified staff Fancis Barber, Eleanor Gordon and Mark Pearson from NLC, and Rob Thompson. As well as language, this aspect of the programme covered UK culture and focused on speaking and practical English.
English Language Teaching
The programme incorporated cultural excursions for the delegates including visits to local places of interest such as the Angel of the North, and trips further afield to Northumberland to experience the English countryside. The delegates were also able to explore Newcastle and the rest of the UK.
Cultural excursions
Delegates participated in a five-day programme in leadership with Dr Anna Reid of the North Leadership Centre, which covered a range of themes including systems and processes and collaboration.
Leadership with Dr Anna Reid, Deputy Director of North Leadership Centre
The programme included visits to a wide range of university departments, and our thanks go to those departments for their willingness to participate and the quality of input that they delivered for the delegates.
Clockwise from top left: Careers Service, Language Resource Centre, Student Finance and Students’ Union
Keynote presentations were given by Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Day, Registrar Dr John Hogan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Engagement & Internationalisation) Professor Richard Davies, and René Koglbauer, Director of the North Leadership Centre. During the formal welcome and closing speeches, keynote speakers from both Newcastle and Xiamen Universities emphasised the value and importance that both institutions place on the continuation of this highly successful partnership.
Clockwise from top left: Registrar Dr John Hogan, Jason Wang of XMU with Professor Chris Day, Vice-Chancellor, René Koglbauer Executive Director of North Leadership Centre, Professor Richard Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Internationalisation
We all look forward to welcoming the next set of delegates next week for the Administrators programme, and to future successes of this partnership.
From 13/02/2017-09/06/2017 we participated in the Erasmus Programme, hosting a student from Belgium for a work placement. She has written a blog post about her experiences which we have reproduced below.
Working at NLC
The Angel of the North
I am Victoria Schiettecatte a third year marketing student at the Odisee school in Belgium (Brussels). I did an internship for four months at the North Leadership Centre (NLC). Since my first year I knew I wanted to go on Erasmus, and I’m not disappointed at all. At the end of June 2016 the school announced I would go to Newcastle upon Tyne. I was ready to go anywhere and I was so happy with my destination. I really wanted to improve my English and to gain some experience in the marketing world. In January I got the email saying I would do my internship at the NLC. I knew this would be a good environment to improve my English.
The Millennium Bridge
I arrived on Saturday the 11th of February and loved this city immediately. My accommodation was near to the quayside, an amazing place. On Monday the 13th February I started my internship at the NLC. It was difficult for me to understand everything in English and also how NLC worked. It was important for me to understand what the NLC does. After some weeks working on marketing and reading a lot about NLC I understood what they do and my English had also improved. It got easier to work on my projects.
The Beach
I worked on many different things and learned so much. When I arrived, NLC had to do a bid for their NETSP (North East Teaching School Partnership) programmes. There were some marketing bids I worked on, they were part of the marketing plan and strategy for NETSP. After the bid was sent it was time to apply the marketing strategy. The website and the brochure needed an update. So I learned to work with different programmes such as Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver.
Newcastle University
With the help of Eleanor and all my colleagues we were able to create a new brochure and website for NETSP. This project gave me an insight of what I wanted to do after this year. I want to do digital marketing studies in Belgium. I also did some data analysis for different projects. I really like to work with figures and worked on some analyses. As I learned to work with Adobe programmes I also worked on the NLC website and wrote a social media plan and strategy. This project was my last project at NLC and I really enjoyed it. I believe I worked in an office were hard work and humour is the key to success. Colleagues were very friendly and received me well. I am so thankful for my internship at NLC.
There were 5 other students from my school doing an Erasmus exchange in Newcastle so we decided to visit each other’s workplaces. It was interesting to see what kind of work others had done during those four months.
Exploring the UK
Fish and Chips
During my exchange I had the opportunity to discover some places. I went to London for a long weekend. I had already visited London but now I enjoyed some walking and museums, not like the busy school trip I had done before.
The Thames
In Newcastle I visited the BALTIC and most of the things around the quayside, Newcastle castle, Angel of the North, The Biscuit Factory, Tynemouth, and many, many more. You can’t be bored here!
We also had the opportunity to go to a farm close to Berwick upon Tweed and learned about the lambing period and helped a bit. An unforgettable experience.
Lambing
My mom came for a weekend and rented a car so we enjoyed a road trip in Scotland. First we went to Durham where I wanted to visit the cathedral. Unfortunately the cathedral was closed as they were filming the new Avengers movie. After our stop in Durham, we went to the Angel of the North on our way up to Scotland and we also went to Alnwick castle. It is an amazing castle which also has a garden to visit, really nice. As we had to be in Aberdeen in the evening we had to leave quickly and had a long drive passing by Edinburgh. The view from the bridge we crossed was amazing.
Alnwick Castle
The next day we visited Balmoral as my mom loves everything about royal families. We also went to the sea, there were cliffs with a lot of birds. It was so beautiful. For the end of our trip we decided to go to Glasgow on our way back to Newcastle and also stopped by the Irish Sea. I knew we would be near Hadrian’s Wall and I really wanted to see Sycamore Gap. After searching for it we were able to find it and see it from the road with an amazing sunset and we went back to Newcastle.
Sycamore Gap
Newcastle upon Tyne is an amazing place and people are very nice. It is a very young and dynamic city and would recommend anyone to study or do an internship here.
We have recently run a collaborative project with Culture Bridge North East. This programme was attended by school leaders, and explored cultural leadership in a school setting.
The event was held at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and Emma Thomas, Head of Learning and Engagement, has written in more detail about the programme on the Culture Bridge North East blog.
If you wish to be added to the waiting list for this programme, please visit our website for further details.
I was tempted to begin this blog post with a witty anagram of BERA and BELMAS, the two conferences I attended this summer but it is with some degree of embarrassment that I have given up with nothing to show for my efforts.
BERA stands for the British Educational Research Association. According to their website , it is a ‘membership association and learned society committed to working for the public good by sustaining a strong and high quality educational research community, dedicated to advancing knowledge of education’. BELMAS is also concerned with the field of education but this society focuses on aspects of and issues concerning leadership, management and administration.
I have been trying for some time to identify ways of applying the methodological and analytical approaches, which I used in my doctoral work, to contexts of educational leadership in line with my roles and responsibilities within the North Leadership Centre. My doctoral work was a study of teachers’ developing understanding of enquiry based learning. It primarily concerned concepts of identity and agency in relation to curriculum innovation and formative assessment. My current position within the North Leadership Centre allows me to work with serving school leaders on aspects of their personal and professional development including identity and agency.
I was delighted, therefore, that my first solo abstracts for both BELMAS in July 2016 and BERA in September 2016 were accepted and included in the conference proceedings. The abstracts presented the rationale and outlines for two different workshops:
How can Bernstein’s (1996) concepts of ‘classification’ and ‘framing’ be used to explore the development of programmes for school leaders in the North East of England?
This workshop addressed the theme of the 2016 BELMAS conference by challenging a shift in government oversight of education from compliance to performance (Ball, 2000) with a more ‘humanist’ approach to professional leadership development. It offered tasks aimed at identifying underlying issues which enable or discourage leadership curriculum innovation. The discussion considered whether incorporating the development of ‘weak’ social structures in new leadership development programmes can help to address key priorities in improving the leadership and management of schools in the current Education sector.
Our dialogical selves: developing an analytical framework for exploring practitioner identity and agency.
This workshop introduced the concept of the ‘dialogical self’ (Hermans, 2001a; Hermans, 2001b) and invited participants to engage with a developing analytical framework for exploring themes of identity and agency. It offered practical tasks aimed at uncovering underlying issues which enable or discourage practitioners to ‘act’ within their particular contexts. The discussion considered whether the analytical framework I employed as part of my doctoral work can help to address key priorities in developing practice in the current Education sector.
Both workshops were designed to foster dialogue and encourage critical reflection in order to seek out whether my ideas for future work would stand up to the rigour and expectations of the academic community. For the first time at these conferences, I felt like I was beginning to find my feet as an academic, capable of holding my own in discussions with others for whom I have a very high regard. That other academics were prepared to share their experiences and expertise with me was a huge boost to my confidence. That they encouraged me to continue with my approaches will be the motivating factor moving forwards.
Outcomes from the BELMAS 2016 workshop
Moving forwards, then, I have committed to preparing and submitting an article for a special issue of ‘Management in Education’ later this year. When I reflect upon my experiences at both BELMAS and BERA, I now realise that I engaged in the conferences as a personal and professional learning opportunities, where, by providing stimuli for discussion, the responses of academic colleagues helped me to move forwards with my own my thinking and doing. Ironically, I feel I am undergoing a shift in identity myself, which is compelling me to engage further and with greater self-belief.
References
Bernstein, B. (1996) Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity. Maryland: Rowman and Little Publishers, Inc.
Hermans, H,. (2001a) ‘The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning’, Culture & Psychology, 7(3), pp.243-281.
Hermans, H. (2001b) ‘The construction of a Personal Position Repertoire: Method and practice’, Culture & Psychology, 7(3), pp.323-365.
