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” →

Last weekend was the 2016 West Midlands regional conference to debate and discuss motions for National Conference, and I simply cannot believe it has been a year since the last regional event, this year has gone so quickly.

As such on Friday 4th November I headed over to Shakespeare’s home ‘Stratford Upon Avon’ to meet with colleagues from all over the region, (If you need a recap of the purpose of regional conferences see my blog regarding last years event).

The conference was to be held at the Crowne Plaza right by the river Avon – a very nice hotel!

Continue reading “West Midlands Regional Conference Nov’16 & ‘lifting the cup’ aka winning a regional award!” →

Being an immigrant myself and having lived through the late 70’s and early 80’s and experienced first-hand some of the tensions that being a immigrant  in a ‘alien’ neighbourhood brings I thought the dark days of examples such as below, had long passed.

However having worked in many West Midlands schools & witnessed first hand examples of the tensions that currently exist between ‘local residents’ and new migrants to the UK in my area, I noticed a worrying trend leading up to the ‘Brexit’ vote and post this referendum of ever increasing tensions and hostilities.

Continue reading “My Social Enterprise visit to Hungary ’16” →

I arrived to this conference with a simple question:

Where is all the work at?

I felt like Yosser Hughes from the ‘Boys with the blackstuff’ with the phrase ‘gis us a job’

Having not worked since Mid July I had found myself unemployed for 2 months, and the Supply Agencies advising me it was slow, ‘the supply market’. My feelings were quite different, the supply teachers market, had been slower than an asthmatic snail after a particularly bad asthma attack!

Continue reading “Supply Teachers Conference – 17th September ’16 @ NEC Birmingham” →