RSA Team

Dear all,

You will remember that Linda and I promised there would be some kind of ongoing role for all of you after the end of the new secondary curriculum support programme?  It seems like a long time ago and I am sorry it has taken us so long to do anything about it. However, ALL has the go-ahead from its management board to put something in place.

We are looking at ideas such as:
-  A new ‘brand name’ for you collectively – something like ALL Curriculum Expert (= ACE?).  If you have other suggestions for an appropriate label please let me know!
- The potential to use the branding for events such as road shows hosted by ALL branches, a section of the Language World conference, etc.
- A consultancy and CPD offer for LAs, schools and ITE providers - which we would want to make distinctive from what Links provides

ALL will need to set this up as a business plan, especially in the current political climate, and we will be exploring the best model for that.  I hope to be able to get back to you with something more concrete in September. Please keep this confidential for the moment.

I hope you all have a great summer holiday, if you are not already lounging somewhere on a beach.  Also, congratulations to those of you who have been delivering Links CPD, as I know the feedback has been outstanding.

All the best,

Kathy

Well…… all the delegates have been logged, most evaluation forms have been received and it’s time for the final reckoning. In March we kept up the fantastic momentum set earlier in the year and ran a further 25 events which were attended by some 304 delegates. In addition there were the cross curricular conferences in the North West, East Midlands and South West.

Our final number of logged delegates comes in at a staggering 1,286 from 94 events. I’ve updated some of the slides I showed at the RSA day to reflect this and added a slide with an analysis of what kind of follow up support delegates have mentioned on their evaluation forms as being welcome. As the comment “More ideas, support, resources” appeared on the vast majority of forms I’ve focused on the other comments, where they appeared. I hope this will be useful to anyone engaged in any form of follow up support either in conjunction with Links or otherwise.

End of phase summary

Summary of RSA activity Phase 3

This just leaves me to thank you all for having been such a fantastic team to work with. Enjoy the holidays!

Liz

Here are the slides on what we’ve done in phase three from the final RSA day last Wednesday, plus a couple more photos:

Phase 3 analysisRSAday

In passing I’ve also learnt in the process of uploading this stuff that Edublogs takes on a life of it’s own and it seems that you have to remember to upload things in the reverse order to how you want them to appear on the page! So I started with uploading the photos from the RSA Academy awards ceremony, thinking I was doing them in chronological order, only to find that the last photo I’d added was the first to appear, so those will now be on a separate posting. It’s all very biblical – the first shall be last and the last shall be first!

Kathy thanking Kim Woodruff and the Japan Foundation

Linda thanking Kathy

Here are some snaps of Kathy’s RSA academy awards ceremony! Not the greatest pics in the world I’m afraid (Snowdon need have nothing to fear…) but at least a reminder of the event.

The Bedford Hotel loyalty award

Sara making her acceptance speech

Waiting for the Awards ceremony

Dave thanking his sponsors Pritt stick

The Weigh me, weigh my bag award

The small change, key change, deep change award

Isabelle, Queen of blogs!

The most travelled RSA

The guy at the side....

The 100 hours a week award

Pauline receives the functional skills award

Mr PLTS reminding us once again (just in case we had forgotten!).....

Jane receiving her certificate

Anne - the authentic materials winner

First lot of photos from the RSA day – for those of you who weren’t there, the discussion was far more interesting than these photos perhaps convey!

I’ve just uploaded some of Rachel’s fabulous resources onto the Various resources page. Some of the files are very big – so may take some time to download. You have been warned!!!

Her blog is also a mine of ideas and resources.

Liz

I attended a NALA meeting back in January on behalf of ALL at which Pam Haezewindt (Ofsted subject adviser for Languages) talked about the evidence of the 2008 – 2009 subject survey for languages. She gave a very detailed presentation and I scribbled merrily away. I’ve finally got round to typing up my notes (isn’t that what half terms are for?) which I thought might be of interest.

Ofsted 2008 – 2009 Inspection evidence

The findings of this survey will make their way into the next Ofsted report on Languages 2007 – 2010 (the previous one being the Changing Landscape of Languages ) which is due to be published later this year.

Liz

Dear all

Despite the appalling weather conditions for many of us for quite some considerable period in January we still managed between us to deliver 16 workshops with over 160 delegates attending – some of you were truly heroic in your efforts given the snow and ice!! Thank you to all of you for your continued efforts – the evaluations have been excellent and show how much your input has been appreciated.

Impact
We are now into the final two months of the support programme, and you will be aware from a previous communication that a number of us will be meeting on February 22nd to evaluate the programme. I would be grateful if you could feed any anecdotal evidence you may have on impact – the degree to which schools/departments have made changes to their curriculum – either to your regional co-ordinator or to me sometime before then so that can be brought to that meeting. You are most likely to have this evidence if you have an AST role as well or if you have done a workshop in this phase in a school/LA where you did one in phase 2.

Invoices/monthly reports
Thank you to all those of you who have sent me your monthly report for January. Could I please ask all of you who have any days to claim from either last term or January to let me know how many days you/your school are claiming and for what as soon as possible- many thanks.

Database
Thank you also to those of you who have entered your delegates onto the database so promptly. Just a reminder that this should be done as soon as possible after your event and in any case within 5 days, as we are required to do under the contract. Could you check when you do this that the event is “complete” and that the region and dates are correct.

Events
If you have any events booked, or are booking any dates between now and the end of March could you make sure that your regional co-ordinator has the details of these to pass on to me and/or you let me know direct as soon as possible so that I can keep track of what has been done where. At the end of each month I have to produce a report for CfBT of our activity and I need this information for it to be as accurate as possible – thanks.

Liz

Dear RSA

As most of you probably know, Language World is only just over two months away so could you all try and publicise it at your workshops from now on. You will probably have received the programme now, mine dropped through the letter box this morning, but here it is in PDF format should you wish/need to forward it.

LW2010 brochure

Liz

Dear RSA

Our final meeting as a group of RSAs will be on Wednesday March 10th at the Japan Foundation London Language Centre, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square, London WC1B 5EH. It is just a few yards from Russell Square underground station. (http://www.jpf.org.uk/map.html).

Start: 10.30am, with coffee from 10.00am (would be grateful for a couple of volunteers to help set up the room from 9.30am)

End: 3.30pm

The agenda has yet to be finalized but Kathy has invited both Lid King and Fiona McConnon (Links national manager) – they have yet to reply. Part of the meeting will also look at how some support can continue to be delivered through the Links centres post March and we are also planning to include a celebratory element…..

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE ABLE TO ATTEND. It will be assumed that you don’t need accommodation unless you indicate that you do (only for journeys of over 3 hours). Please book travel in advance to take advantage of low cost fares

I do hope as many of you as possible will be able to make this meeting and look forward to seeing you then

Liz