Programmes
touchconsulting Ltd is a small organisation that co-designs and delivers big quality improvement programmes for the education and training profession
Skylark Leads
Landing Page
touchconsulting Ltd is delivering this programme on behalf of the Education and Training Foundation.
1. Welcome
A warm, warm welcome to the Education and Training Foundation’s Skylark Pathway, part of the #APConnect Developing Advanced Practitioners Programme.
Skylarks is all about developing your capacity to organise, promote and evaluate professional learning events, and it’s great that you’ve got a team together. We are so excited to work with you.
We recommend bookmarking this landing page. It will evolve over time, as our work together unfolds. We also recommend you taking a few minutes to read Mary Conway’s latest blog on the Skylark pathway here.
Introductory Video
In this video, Lou Mycroft welcomes you to the Skylark programme. [2 mins:56 secs]
Meet the Team
2. The Programme
| Activity | Date | |
|---|---|---|
| WELCOME | ||
| Full professional development (PD) details for your Skylark team & booking links can be found on the Skylark PD page. All of these PD activities are mandatory. Your attendance is a condition of funding. | Skylark PD1 (Streamyard) Introduction to the Skylark Hubs Skylark PD2 (Zoom) Building Communities as a Practice of Care. | 21 September 2021 08:00 - 09:00 OR 22 September 2021 16:30 - 17:30 OR 21 October 2021 16:30 - 17:30 OR 22 October 2021 08:00 - 09:00 28 September 2021 10:00 - 16:30 OR 3 November 2021 10:00 - 16:30 OR 17 November 2021 10:00 - 16:30 |
| Skylark PD3 (Wakelet) Creating Networks and Exchanges | Asynchronous - work at your own pace The Skylark lead and named senior manager will be issued the grant letter shortly. |
|
| ENGAGING | ||
| Full details will be revealed as part of the Skylark PD programme. | A series (minimum 3) of online Ideas Rooms/action learning sets A minimum of two AP-led networks Project lead to submit monthly report | The first of these must have taken place by the end of December 2021, with the remaining two having taken place by the end of March 2022. The first of these must have taken place by 31 December 2021, and the second by 25 March 2022. Submit monthly to kayte@edukayte.co.uk due 20 October 2021 and monthly on the 20th until March 2022. *A note about data protection - see *below |
| Monthly mentoring meeting with Skylark lead and Mary Conway and Chloe Hynes Chloe and Mary will support leads flexibly using the Skylark Slack community and optional 1:1s. | 1-2pm Fridays (online): 5 & 19 November, 3 & 17 December, 14, 21 & 28 January, 4, 18 & 25 February and 4, 11 & 18 March. Zoom link is pinned on the Skylark's Slack channel or message Chloe or Mary. Please do access support as needed. |
I’d like to give a public appreciate for @Chloë for our mentor session today. I can now see that collaboration with our partner college doesn’t have to mean doing every event together, but collaborating and planning our events together and sharing our ideas rooms will be our starting point. Professional development that works for both of our organisations that we can both learn from and be enriched by. Thank you for your time, insightful questions and listening Chloe
3. The ‘Work’
The purpose of Skylarks is to grow in capacity and confidence, to organise, host and evaluate AP-led networks and professional development, as part of a wider tapestry of grassroots #FE peer learning.
We know already from the Constellations that some of you are up for engaging with the theory behind this ‘rhizomatic’ approach and others less so, which is also fine. So we’ll be relying on you to let us know how to dial up and down the ‘theory’.
We call this ‘Hot Sauce’. Just as when you order a Virgin or Bloody Mary you might be asked how hot you want it on a scale of 1-10, we’ll keep checking in with you about how deep you want us to go.
If you’re up for it, expect to learn more about:
- The practice of values
- Constellations, rhizomes (and bluebells)
- Potestas and potentia – your activist energy
- Anti-fragility and anti-competition
- Co-production and co-creation
This section will grow as a reading resource for you, and for the future.
4. Constellations
You will already be a member of the #APConnect online community, ‘Constellations’, which is hosted on Slack. Lots of help to get you oriented, so shout if it feels overwhelming at first.
This year, you’ll encounter many constellations and as part of Skylarks, you’ll create your own.
Other ‘tentacles’ of #APConnect include:
- Professional Development (Leading AP Teams, Development Observations, Practice Enquiry Circles, Deepening your Thinking Environment).
- Festival Fridays
- Train the Trainers
- #APConnect Comms (sign up to stay connected to the latest developments)
And there is so much more out there across the #FE landscape:
- #UKFEChat
- #FEResearchMeet
- #AmplifyFE
- #JoyFE (our Ideas Rooms partner)
- #FETapestry (our Festival Fridays partner)
We’ll keep adding to the list, so don’t forget hashtags for your events!
*A NOTE ABOUT DATA PROTECTION
It is likely that some direct participants will be hesitant about providing the email address of people they have shared their learning with (indirect participants) because of concerns about data protection.
Indirect participation in our programmes comes under the lawful basis of public task, which means we can process personal data where we have ‘official authority’ or are performing a task which is in the public interest. More details about this can be found in section three of the Education and Training Foundation’s Privacy and Cookie Policy, link below.
Please provide the business email address below of anyone you have directly shared your knowledge and learning with and impacted their practise as a result. Please note these details will not be used for any purpose linked to marketing or communications; they will be stored to allow the reach of the programme to be shown. They may be shared with the Education & Training Foundation and the Department for Education if we are asked to show who our programme has supported. For more information, please refer to http://www.et-foundation.co.uk/terms-of-usage/privacy-cookie-policy/http://www.et-foundation.co.uk/terms-of-usage/privacy-cookie-policy/