‘The hardest term’ & A busy 2016 with Equality events & more….

So 2016 has rolled around & after a Christmas break (which by the way I find is the least relaxing holiday of the various half termly breaks) I find myself back at school.

No-one is happy to be back after the seasonal holiday, the nights draw in early, its cold & everyone is flat/miserable. Many children find themselves with coughs & colds and schools become incubators for germs.

Added to which the Year 11’s start to panic and so more revision sessions/catch up sessions etc are requested by the School’s leadership team, which add to an ever increasing workload.

By early January parents are keen for their children to get back into some normality & routine that school life brings (which I agree with as a parent myself) but it feels like all the ground rules &  behavior policies I have tried to consistently employ within my classroom have been forgotten and so this term is a hard slog reestablishing myself & my expectations.

This term for me anyway has been even made more fun by the school I work in has found themselves a new Principal, who is very keen to make his mark!

( I am sure I will write more of my new Principal during the year.)

All of which mean that this half term & up until Easter is always the hardest and with many year group parents evenings added into the mix, I always try to keep my head down & plough on through the term.

The one silver lining is that during this long slog of a term, various ‘Special Interest group’ conferences begin, leading up to National Conference, and now for a quick recap:

A Special Interest Group:

‘Is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to affect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences’.

NASUWT Special Interest Groups:

In no particular order, other than alphabetically these are:

• BME (Black, Minority & Ethnic Teachers)
• Disabled Teachers
• LGBT (Lesbian, Gay & Transgender) Teachers
• Supply Teachers
• Women Teachers
• Young Teachers (Teachers under the age of 30)

Each have their own specific conference or consultation seminar, where members who identify themselves come together to create a platform to share experiences, network, gain some much needed CPD & request the Union works on specific areas of interest to that specific special interest group.

At each of these conferences or consultation seminars (I have no idea the difference) the members elect a small group, usually 4 – 6 people to act as their ‘Advisory Committee’ who then take the points/issues raised at the conference to the Union & its Executive Body.

Special Interest Groups Conference Dates:

•  BME (Black, Minority & Ethnic Teachers) – 3rd Dec ’16
• Disabled Teachers – 25th June ’16
• LGBT (Lesbian, Gay & Transgender) Teachers – 13th Feb ’16
• Supply Teachers 12 March ’16
• Women Teachers 15th Oct ’16
• Young Teachers (Teachers under the age of 30) – 23rd Jan ’16

Attending these conferences is simple, simply ask your local division, or email:

conferencesandevents@mail.nasuwt.org.uk

Depending on what dates these conferences fall on, the issues discussed at these events feed into the wider National Conference which is held late March every year.

NASUWT National Conference 2016

Is from Friday 25th March until Monday 28th March & this year it is being held in Birmingham, the same process for attending the Special Interest Group conferences applies to attending National Conference.

So Busy, Busy, Busy…..

Over the last 10 months I have been the Equality Officer (see earlier blogs) for my Division, and so I have within this role attended most of the Special Interest Group conferences and National Conference. I hope to be doing similar this year.

I hope to see you there & please keep following the blog

Happy New Year..

One final point – for every blog I intend to add a video with some educational link (sometimes it might be quite tenuous)

‘No dark sarcasm in the classroom’