FOBISIA's Love of Learning

FOBISIA'S LOVEOF LEARNING

Emma-Marie Horridge, Deputy Head of Preparatory School, Brighton College International School Bangkok

The FOBISIA biennial Teaching Community Conference is a highlight of the CPD opportunities offered by FOBISIA. At Brighton, we were delighted to have the opportunity to be this year’s hosts. While COVID-19 has presented many difficulties in getting together in the way we used to, we were also excited by the prospects COVID offered in running this year’s conference a little differently.

We recognised that all of our teaching and learning assistants, teachers and leaders shared one common connection - a love of learning. Therefore, we wanted a format that allowed everyone to participate and that is exactly what happened with over 1700 ticket holders from over 50 schools attending either live or by watching the recorded videos. Thank you to all of you that took part!

“ An excellent range of speakers and a useful and practical opportunity to share and develop practice”

It also meant that we could reach out to an amazing range of hosts who truly could provide something for everyone. The feedback from our keynote speakers Kate Jones, Alex Qigley and John Hattie has been excellent, terms such as ‘motivational’ and ‘inspiring’ often being used. They were complemented by a wide range of additional speakers who were able to focus more specifically on CPD for our teaching and learning assistants, Early Years, English specialists, wellbeing and so much more. However, for many of our members, it was actually the internal speakers and the opportunity to network on Whova that proved the particular highlight of the event.

What an amazing opportunity this provided after being stuck in our own school bubbles for so long, this chance to share like minded frustrations was a relief, and definitely learning that there is a light at the end of this groundhog day tunnel was just the message that many of us needed. I know I came away revitalised after listening to the wonderful Cathy Williams. It gave me the clarity to truly reflect on what we have achieved at Brighton so far and how we can continue to grow as professionals. This for me is what a teaching community conference is all about!

I would like to say a big thank you to FOBISIA for providing us with the opportunity to host this amazing event and for the wonderful support they provided. Another big thank you to my amazing colleagues at Brighton, this was truly a team effort. So many staff jumped in to help secure speakers, host sessions, create the marketing materials and support the IT. In Adrian Bethune’s session on wellbeing he spoke about creating a ‘tribe’ like classroom where the children want to support each other for the good of the class; for me, creating a tribe amongst your school team too is what can really make a difference and what an honour it is to be a part of this one!

So where next for CPD? Has the opportunity for everyone to attend the conference had a greater impact on teaching and learning in your school? Or should we be getting back to normal and providing face to face conferencing again? For me, I hope we fall somewhere in the middle. I love how podcasts, webinars and Twitter provide me with so much content online from around the world, I have probably taken part in more CPD over the past few years than I had in the entirety of my career pre-COVID. Nevertheless, I cannot wait to hopefully see some of you in person soon, to take part in an embarrassing icebreaker and enjoy a cup of coffee and a biscuit while we discuss life in school. I hope the message from this is that we get to go back to what we have missed but that equally we never forget the invaluable lessons we have learnt about being in charge of our own CPD and keeping that ‘love of learning’ alive.

A big thank you to all of you who attended and I hope that you are seeing real differences in your own schools from what you took away from the event.

The team from Brighton College were excellentreally professional introductions to all sessions and they kept the whole thing running smoothly”