#FestivalFridays: 2021-2022 By Lou Mycroft

Halfway through Year 3 of #APConnect, we took a risk. It was mid-December 2020, a third lockdown was looming and we could see that our usual approach to bringing APs together wasn’t working as well as it had in the past. We asked APs for their views and they were emphatic – they wanted regular drop in times, rather than trying to squeeze yet another date in the diary. Festival Fridays were born and you can read about their origin in Joss’s blog here.

 

We are thrilled to announce that Festival Fridays will be a linchpin of #APConnect Year 4 and even more delighted to welcome new partners on board. 

PDN is a treasure trove of resources, support and opportunities from all parts of the FE sector. Chloe Hynes from PDN will be leading on Festival Fridays and on the Practitioner-Led FE Professional Learning pathway (we’ll publish more about this soon).

JoyFE💛 was born in lockdown, a collective of practitioners engaged in the joyful remaking of education. JoyFE💛 volunteers will be providing weekly Ideas Rooms for Festival Fridays during term time.

We are still putting the programme together, but this is likely to be the structure: 

• 9-10am Ideas Room with #JoyFE💛 (an efficient Thinking Environment space for nurturing ideas)
• 12-1pm Try it Here First with PDN (practitioners trying out their CPD ideas)
• 1pm-2.30pm Expert Workshops (including workshops from Equalities Mentoring partners #BAMEEd Network and EQtraining)
• 3-4pm alternate Social Purpose Thinking Space and Reading Rooms, plus parallel ATS staffroom.

 

The programme will stay fresh and responsive to demand throughout the year, pausing only at holiday times. We are always happy for ideas and offers of involvement.