West Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training
Management Meeting
Tuesday, 28 January 2014, University House, University of Warwick
Attendees:
1.
Ellen Buttler
Julie Chamberlain
Vron Leslie
Fergus McKay
Barbara Parkinson
Mike Smith
Apologies
None.
2.
Minutes of Management Meeting, 19 September 2013
These were accepted as a true record.
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Matters arising
Issues would be covered in the rest of the agenda.
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Chair’s update
A. Paula Jones, the ACETT chair, had successfully lobbied government, resulting in the CETTs rolling
out the NCETM’s GCSE Maths Enhancement Programme to people charged with delivering maths to
people who had not gained an A*-C grade at GCSE. It would be followed by the English Enhancement
Programme, which is currently out to tender. FM said principals across the West Midlands were
generally very receptive to it. WMCETT’s strategic maths lead Steve Pardoe had accepted a national
role to oversee the co-ordination of the programme
B. A review of the Professional Standards for teachers and trainers was under way. Pye Tait won the
contract and asked the CETTs to do the work. FM said it was the uncoupling of the links between
teacher training and the IfL. JC said 50 people were coming to the Midlands consultation event
organised by WMCETT. EB said there was a debate about what the standards were for. Ofsted were
going to use them as a tool in inspections.
C. SUNCETT were offering a free action research training programme, which involved three
workshops. EMCETT were also offering a programme with support and mentoring. The idea was to
empower people to undertake research on something relevant to their organisation.
Action point: JC to send details to the committee.
5.
Project manager’s update
JC reported that so far WMCETT had 173 people registered on the Maths Enhancement Programme,
and 76 of them had started on the course. Five courses had started and another seven were
arranged. Part of the contract also included running a MESH, or Mathematics Education Strategic
Hub, and the first meeting of this was scheduled to take place on Thursday.
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WMCETT had also been commissioned by ACETT, along with CETTs around the country, to do some
research for the Education and Training Foundation on good practice in maths, English and SEN
teaching, and three good practice network events had been organised to take place in the first week
of March.
6.
Current activities
VL had produced the new WMCOP bulletin. She was concerned about quality control in training and
national qualifications.
BP informed the committee that a lot of Clever Elephant’s work with third sector organisations was
about them trying to find new business models. FM asked what co-production was, and BP explained
it meant putting users at the heart of things and looking with them at how scarce resources could be
better used. They had to express their uniqueness. It was not just about cost effectiveness, but about
adding value for money and what was provided. Clever Elephant were writing a co-production
strategy for infrastructure bodies in Herefordshire.
MS said HWSTPA had just come to the end of their three-year strategic plan. CPD was at the top of
the agenda. They have been awarded some money by the ETF to run some workshops. None of the
workshops were accredited, but people were still looking for accredited programmes. EB said private
training providers had approached her wanting an accredited programme.
EB talked about the impact of funding changes on recruitment to courses. She was working with nine
partner colleges and said there had been a slight dip in recruitment, but a slight rise in people
wanting to take English programmes, which might be linked to the increased emphasis on maths and
English in the 16-19 programme of study.
At the last count 18 people had accessed the bursaries available to pre-service trainees doing the
Diploma course in teaching disabled learners. Since the course started there had been more people
interested and a new cohort would run from September, but they would have missed out on the
bursary opportunity, and she did not know there would be more funding available.
EB said there were other accredited CPD courses starting soon, including a coaching and mentoring
course VL was involved in. A new programme about teaching college-based higher education was
due to start in March. A contextualised CET started in January. She added that with Ofsted now
looking at teacher development holistically there may be opportunities for CLL there.
FM talked about a new Community Leaders workshop which aimed at empowering individuals who
worked in their neighbourhoods. It helped with widening participation and public engagement, as
well as getting more people into the system. It might lead to an accredited course if there was a
demand for it.
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Any other business
There was none.
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Next meeting
The date for the next meeting was set for Tuesday, 1 July, at 10.30am, at University House, University
of Warwick, room number to be confirmed.
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