It was great to get my first course for Creative Education under my belt and in some ways quite a gentle introduction. I delivered a PE course to four delegates in South Kensington, London. The course itself went well. My only issues were of my own making due to a faulty case hindering my travel across the city.
The event was a great learning experience in several ways. Firstly, Creative did a fantastic job in organising travel and accommodation. In addition the venue, The Regency Hotel, was absolutely fantastic. Not only was the conference room perfect but the lunch probably the best I've ever enjoyed at a training event.
The biggest learning, however, was in terms of people's understanding of what 'outstaniding' teaching and learning is in relation to PE. Two of the delegates were currently working in the independent sector and a third in an academy in London. The value of PE and Sport in the two seem vastly different. The guys from the independent sector have to put a high emphasis on preparing pupils to represent the school teams and 'sport' clearly has a very high profile. By contrast, the academy teacher appears to be battling a culture of extremely low status for PE. A school where, by her account, there is no actual PE department; she is unaware of an existing PE curriculum; and extra-curricular activities seem minimal.
The focus of moving from good to outstanding raised a lot of discussion and gave the opportunity for sharing ideas. All delegates left with targets to work on to move practice forwards. It would be interesting to meet these folks a bit further down the line to see what improvements they have been able to make.
I'm now waiting on my next invitation to deliver something for Creative. Assuming the evaluations were acceptable, I would like to think it won't be too far in the future.
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