Spark(l)ing constellations

Spark(l)ing constellations – Friday 26 March 2021

The touchconsulting team are busy planning the third APConnect national conference as part of the Education and Training Foundation’s #APConnect programme. This time, last year, we were finalising the face-to-face event and, like many, pivoted to emergency online conferencing with a week or so to go. It was much needed but we had to move fast. A year on, it’s a different world and we’ve all learnt loads.

So, we bring you with great joy Spark(l)ing Constellations – all welcome. We’ll be kicking off 9:30 to 10:30 with asynchronous activities including a Flipgrid ‘How are you’ opening round. This year the 100 APs on Constellations B & C have flourished online –  facilitated via Slack, each other and our CoP team. Powerful relationships and alliances have formed. For example, Michelle Wakling and Karen Gowlett – never having met face-to-face- have organised the APSouth mini-conference!

We have lots of asynchronous treats:

• video shout outs from amazing, often grassroots, constellations which exist across the FE landscape. See the faces behind #AdultEducation,  #FEForestSchool, #FEResearchMeet, #PDN (& many more)… and get involved.
• synchronous video ‘How to (& why)’ workshops on podcasting, curating practice-evidence via Wakelet and using GIFs in teaching!

Excited?

I haven’t even got to the live content but expect to be inspired and engaged.

Keynote v Thinknote?

We’ve all learned so much this year about prepping and teaching online. We commit to teach what we now know and what we’ve learned about flourishing in uncertain times. Our thinknotes will be on the themes of AP Identity, Purpose, Community and Impact. We’ll teach explicitly and by modelling. When I say ‘we’, I mean the programme team and the 150+ AP community we’ve had the privilege to work with. So, we’ve ditched the keynote(r) for a series of thinknotes led by our team. We’ll share our knowledge and freshest thinking –  what we now know – having run this powerful programme over the last three years. It feels the right thing to do. We’ll open up spaces for you to ‘test’ this knowing against your experiences.

Explore AP-led Professional Learning Initiatives 

We are just finalising an exciting series of AP-led workshops. Topics range from: Rolling out development observations across an organisation, Transitioning to online teaching for English teams, Bottom up professional development and so much more. You’ll have to pick a workshop room but we will record because we know you’re going to want to watch them all!

Ideas room

We are still thrashing this one out. But it looks like we’re going with our biggest ever number of Ideas rooms with our largest audience. Eek! These are magical spaces as many have already attested to. Watch this brilliant video from AP Marsida Horeshka (@MarsMaths) to find out more. Ideas Rooms are grounded in Nancy Kline’s The Thinking Environment. The Thinking Environment has been a transformational building block of APConnect since year 1 – and it’s only got stronger and stronger.

‘The deliberate effort to extend the AP networks in Year 2 has enhanced AP visibility across the country and will undoubtedly be a positive change for the sector as the benefits of the role become more widely acknowledged. Findings show that continuing along the same trajectory of the powerful messages and content of the APP has the potential to improve quality across the sector.’

ICF: Y2 Evaluation of the Advanced Practitioner Programme (p42) commissioned by ETF

Year3. We have smashed it!

And I’m out of word count. Suffice to say we’ve got a storyteller, Richard O’Neill and the brilliant Pen Mendonça capturing the day – just in case you can’t join us.

Join us.

By Joss Kang, #APConnect Project Director

touchconsulting Ltd is delivering #APConnect on behalf of the Education and Training Foundation.