Naace Conference 2012 – Saturday

This is the final in a series of three posts about my experiences of the Naace Conference 2012. To read the first post in the series, click here and for the second, click here.

After a very, VERY late night on Friday, getting up on Saturday was quite a challenge. Nevertheless, I still got up and had another enjoyable breakfast with Vicki Cox before the main event had begun.

Saturday, the final day of the conference, began with a keynote speech from the ever-charming Mick Waters. Mick’s keynote – Curriculum Change – The Place of ICT? – was interesting and inspiring, but of all of the statements he made which caught my attention, this one was somewhere near the top of the list:

“Teachers often bemoan a lack of time and a need to ‘get on’. But with what? What exactly are they ‘getting on’ with?”

This quote interested me as I often find that education is more about blindly going along with what is deemed ‘normal’ or ‘correct’ and not often enough about accommodating the interests of pupils. What exactly is the issue with engaging with children in an unplanned debate they are interested in? Isn’t that a good thing? Is the need to ‘get on’ really greater than the need to discuss things our pupils are interested in?

Needless to say the rest of Mick’s keynote was superb and his delivery style was always going to win over the crowd immediately, and not without justification.

(We were once lucky enough at Bowling Park Primary School to be featured on Mick’s Teachers’ TV show, Mick Waters Drops In. To see the 15-minute documentary about life at school, click here).

After the keynote there were opportunities for more networking and a number of smaller breakout sessions, of which the Vital-led sessions and geocaching with Vicki and James Langley, two of my colleagues from the Bradford Curriculum ICT team, were particular highlights.

Teachmeet Naace

Saturday afternoon saw the introduction of the Naace Teachmeet, an event co-hosted by James Langley, Dughall McCormick and Drew Buddie, all members of the Naace Board of Management.

The event was hugely successful, seeing tens and tens of teachers turn up of their own volition to this weekend-hosted CPD event, an astonishing fact I could not resist pointing out.

So much happened and so many great people spoke of their great ideas and projects that I simply won’t detail my own personal highlights here, but instead point you in the direction of the recorded presentations, which can be found here. Many thanks must be extended to Leon Cych for filming and uploading these videos.

So, my first ever Naace conference was amazing! An incredible opportunity to see, share, meet, eat, drink, learn, write and sleep. In no particular order. Roll on next year…