The long road to Chartered Teacher

I’ve just got back from a free CPD event at the lovely Dalhousie Castle Hotel organised by EIS and Midlothian. The event was very well organised by Vicky Wallace as the Midlothian EIS Learning Rep (apparently East Lothian doesn’t have a multi-establishment equivalent!)

We were treated to the presence of the EIS President, Kirsty Devaney and received presentations from Elisabeth Ritchie of HMIe and Tom Hamilton of the GTCS.

I’m quite surprised how much I found out in such a short space of time. Elisabeth put this whole HGIOS in to perspective for me as I’d never really got my head round it as a relative newcomer. More importantly, she showed us the Journey to Excellence website (or HGIOS 5), which is really impressive and provides much food for thought. For example, have a look at this brief discussion of the assessment of thinking skills from Carol McGuinness:
DownloadAssessing thinking skills - Carol McGuinness

There is a lot more on the site as well - go and have a look!

Tom talked to us about the GTCS’s professional registration and recognition schemes - I’d not actually come across this recognition scheme! How’s that for someone currently fretting over an essay on professionalism!!!

It just shows you what you can find out from sticking your name down for these free CPD events which come along. Perhaps it also suggests that we could do with an equivalent to Vicky in East Lothian?

I went along to the C4 taste festival in the Meadows yesterday - it was absolutely fantastic. I don’t normally do these sorts of posts, but it was so good I wanted to tell as many people as possible to make sure you don’t miss out next year.