This event has now taken place. But you can access all the video-presentations and event related content below! 

1. Welcome

A warm, warm welcome to the DfE funded, Education and Training Foundation’s fourth annual #APConnect conference: A Story of Advanced Practice – Rethinking the Role of the Advanced Practitioner (AP). It’s an apt title as the programme, in its current form, is now in its fourth and final, funded year. But we know the work of APs will continue as you address policy and organisational priorities such as maths/English and digital by developing your AP-skills palette and enacting collaborative practices; agency, collaboration, risk-taking, creativity, innovation and amplification – rooted in a set of explicit, negotiated values:(1).

Today we will spotlight evidence-informed insights, knowledge and practices generated from working with APs over four years through the #APConnect multi-pathway programme. We’ll tell the story of advanced practice through the lens of a past, a present and a future. Your culture-changing work takes centre stage in all its many forms.

We are using the hashtag #APConnect for today so please tag the event into your social media posts – and look out too, for the #APConnect curated exhibition with its artefacts from the last four years. We are inviting you to actively engage with these later today.

We recommend bookmarking this landing page. Pop back to it if you need directions for the day: the programme below has everything you need. Although it’s a full day, we have practised care in our planning and we don’t want you to be on Zoom all day. Some of the conference activities require you to get a cuppa of your choice and engage in asynchronous activities. Before you grab that cuppa, complete this short register (link removed) and listen for a shout out from Lou and Joss on our live stream below. 

You’ll find the agenda including all timings and Zoom links in Section 3. We will be using separate Zoom links for the morning workshops, so have a Iook through and see which you’d like to attend. Please select one workshop and sign up for it (links in Section 3). Numbers are capped for each workshop and places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Do spend time browsing today’s landing page to get familiar with the day; it offers so much to provoke your thinking and you’ll have space to process your ideas too. 

Right now, check out the starter activities below and our live stream from 9:30-9:50 am! We hope they will ease you gently into the day, and do join us on Twitter using #APConnect 😀

How are you?

Hop onto the Menti for our opening round: How are you? leaving role, rank and ego at the door.  

Listen for your shout out as Joss and Lou LIVEstream the start of the day! (9.30 – 9.50)

2. A Story of Advanced Practice 

Since ‘Advanced Practice’ was re-launched in FE (2017) with the publication of the Tyler et al research, Advanced Practitioners (APs) themselves have rewritten the job description and, in doing so, positioned themselves as change agents within their organisations. The functions of the AP role still hold strong four years on with APs continuing to provide 1:1 support, facilitating professional development, coaching and mentoring, inducting and supporting new staff, helping translate and implement internally and externally set strategic objectives and staying current as an AP and teaching practitioner.

But our thinking has moved on since 2018, informed at every turn by research with APs and AP-led practice evidence. This can be seen strongly in the areas of: professional development; pan-organisational-external-communities, values based leadership, culture and innovation. We’ll explore more at the conference Thinknotes. But do browse the new cards below for a sneak preview. You can click the pictures below to download individually or pick up this new set here. 

As the co-evaluation research with APs ‘Rethinking the Role of the Advanced Practitioner’ (2021) established, APs are driven by external relationships, ideas and energy to do their culture changing, quality improving work. We are recognising this with the inclusion of a new set of AP cards. Yellow cards represent the pan-organisational approaches led by APs. The wider evidence-based for these new cards can be accessed in the research report above and in the ETF’s APs Thriving or Surviving during COVID research.

3. Agenda Friday 25 March 2022

Today’s conference is a public event and we will be recording sessions throughout the day. Recordings will be available on the landing page post-event. We’ll also share widely with those outside the AP community using the #APConnect hashtag on social media 😀

4. #APConnect Exhibition (2.30 – 2.55)

Settle down with coffee, cake and your incisive question! Enjoy mining the artefacts created during the #APConnect programme with, for and by Advanced Practitioners. Each artefact is housed in an Exhibition. Each Exhibition represents one of the APConnect pathways i.e. Northstar Train-the-Trainer in Advanced Practice, Expert-led CPD modules, Skylarks professional learning pathway, Constellations, Festival Fridays as well as cross-cutting themes of maths and English, digital, community and the Bowerbird! 

Your task over coffee and cake

• Which Exhibition will you ‘mine’ to help you identify connections, insights, know-how and resources to respond to your Incisive Question? 
• Don’t forget to post a picture of your cake on Twitter or other social media using #APConnect.