Late June 2017 & England is gripped by a heat wave as I travel down to London to attend and work with the English Speaking Union at their International Oracy Symposium.

Who are the English speaking Union:

http://www.esu.org/

The main purpose of my attendance is to share my report with the ESU from my recent American adventures (which will be uploaded in the very near future) and to network with American teachers, fellow ESU members and other educational stakeholders.

The day was structured as follows:

In the morning I travelled across to Dartmouth House and met with ESU colleagues to present and deliver my full report relating to my Walter Hines Page Scholarship

(Zoe Adams, Patrick Ryan & Melanie Aplin)

Continue reading “ESU – International Oracy Symposium” →

Its been a busy few months with many separate pressures and demands fighting for priority, the summer term for teachers can be extremely stressful leading up to exam season, with the seemingly never ending exam timetable ruling the ebb & flow of school life As such as with most people something has to give and sadly for a short period it has been this blog – however never fear, I am once again back on my blogging horse!

All my Year 11 students have now been coaxed, supported, cajoled and generally shoe horned into the exam halls, never easy when a heat-wave hits the country!

‘Larry The Cat’ the Nations greatest political commentator summed it up best by tweeting his updated status during this heat wave see below!

(I urge you if you have the chance to check his twitter page out, it succinctly summarizes the political position of the day.)

twitter.com/Number10cat

Continue reading “The Disabled Teachers Conference & becoming the ‘Veep’” →

During the February half term I travelled to Hungary on the next stage of my social cohesion project to link schools in the West Midlands with schools in Budapest, Hungary.

You may recall during the latter part of 2016, my fund raising for this visit was successful, and I set out my aims and objectives of this social cohesion project in my earlier blog post – hyperlink:

https://lifeatdivisionnasuwt.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/social-enterprise-visit-hungary-16/

As such on Monday 20th February I flew with Jet2 from East Midlands to Budapest.

Continue reading “Connecting School’s – Budapest February 2017 visit.” →

At the beginning of December I attended the BME Conference in Birmingham. As such on the Friday evening after finishing my supply work in Telford I headed over to Birmingham and met some fellow colleagues & BME Delegates at the German Markets which was on and close by to the NEC where the conference was being held this year.

After a relaxing catch up & chat over mugs of Glud Wine and reindeer burgers and soaking up the festive cheer we headed for the pre conference meal and evening event. The event had moved from the NEC Hilton where it had be held for the last few years to the ICC (the largest conference arena in Birmingham) & where we as a Union hold our national conference every other year.

Continue reading “My 2nd “BME” Conference – Dec ’16″ →

Last Friday I was invited to the English Speaking Union to take part in their annual Thanksgiving dinner and debate, as I am involved and part of their Walter Hines Page Scholarship programme for 2017.

The English Speaking Union  (ESU) was founded by writer and journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench after the First World War, he felt that if the world was able to communicate more effectively, global understanding between nations would improve.

http://www.esu.org/

Walter Hines Page Scholarship is one of many projects and programmes the ESU facilitate, through their work with the Walter Hines Page Scholarship (WHPS) they support teaching and educational professionals to travel to the USA to research and exchange educational ideas in the field of communication.

Page Scholars such as myself (next year) travel to the US to study an aspect of education in which they are interested and which aligns with the ESU’s work, more on my scholarship and area for research will be in future blogs.

Continue reading “English Speaking Union Thanksgiving Dinner & Debate – 25th November ’16” →