Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) - Application for Assessment
Please give details of your career and other relevant experience, starting with your most recent position. You may include paid and voluntary experience.
Date(s) / Positions held and main areas of responsibility/activity (including details of salary for most recent position) / Employer or organisation
2004-2006 / Subject Leader for ICT & ICT Services Manager
Teaching, co-ordinating ICT curriculum and cross curricular. Managing the school ICT infrastructure. ITT and NQT mentor.
1995-2004 / Subject Leader for ICT & Teacher of Mathematics
Teaching, co-ordinating ICT curriculum and cross curricular. Line manager for ICT services manager, responsible for reprographics and learning resources including the library. Lead Mathematics Teacher across the city, supporting and mentoring ITT, NQT.
1994-1995 / Teacher of Mathematics
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QualificationsPlease give full details of any degree(s) and other professional qualifications. Please make clear which have been achieved and which are still in progress.
Date(s) / Awarding body / Details of qualification
2006 / NCSL / LFTM
2006 in progress / BCS / ECDL
2006 / SheffieldHallamUniversity / ITT Mentor
1992-1994 / DFES / Bed Mathematics
1987-1990 / South Glamorgan Institute of higher Education / HND hotel Catering and Institutional Management
1988 / Univeritie de savoie (France) / Diploma in French and Tourism
1981-1987 / SilverdaleSchool / A level Mathematics
AO level Mathematics
O Level Mathematics, English, chemistry, French, History
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Continuing professional developmentPlease give details of the key aspects of your continuing professional development, concentrating on the last three years. You should explain how you have used your continuing professional development to improve your own teaching and that of others.
This is not restricted to attendance at training courses but could also include other activities such as secondments, research, visits and working with other teachers.
Over the last 2 years I have implemented the new DiDA (Diploma in Digital Applications) qualification and continued to deliver the GCSE OCR ICT course for KS4 students. I have consequently spent many hours researching different providers, exam boards and materials for both courses in addition to attending many training courses and presented my finding to stakeholders. I have then created schemes of work and shared them with others and implemented across a team of up to 9 teachers in order to enable them to enhance their teaching and learning.
As ICT is an area which is constantly evolving, I have been involved with many initiatives and pilot projects, such as the south Yorkshire e-learning project, the innovative teaching scheme, Microsoft academies and Sheffield schools e-mail pilot project to name but a few. I am always striving to keep abreast of new technology, for example the use of interactive materials to enhance teaching and learning, the use of portable peripherals so as to bring new styles of teaching to the classroom rather than taking the class to the technology and how I can best use it within my personal and professional life. By speaking to other users, reading and researching are some of the ways I manage to fulfil this area.
Last year I successfully completed the Leading From The Middle course through the NationalCollege for School Leadership. This has widened my knowledge and experience of leadership and interpersonal skills required to engage team members in teaching and learning development. I also received refresher training for ITT mentor and training to be a mentor for Higher Level Teaching assistants both through SheffieldHallamUniversity which I have successfully implemented in order to coach and improve the experiences and development of student teachers and aspiring teaching assistants.
As an ongoing method of communicating the developments and various issues I produced a monthly ICT newsletter for all staff as a tool to communicate information such as how aspects of the school network could be used to enhance teaching and learning, information relating to the number of students with computer and internet access at home (following a whole school audit which I initiated) so that teachers could use this to enhance their use of e-learning. I also included in these newsletters quick easy to use tips which once discovered I found very useful when designing ICT resources for use within the classroom. I usually listed a few web sites that I thought teachers would find useful in their roles and within school. Advertising ICT training (led by myself) for all staff was another successful aspect within the newsletter. The headteacher congratulated me and sent me a written “thank you” for its implementation. Many of the staff would ask me when the next issue would be published and gave me suggestions for future editions.
Last year I was approached by the National Centre for Teachers of Mathematics to assist in the production and launch of their very successful recently released portal for the professional development of teachers within this subject area. I was asked to lead discussion forums and communities around the subject of becoming an AST and have since joined other discussion groups focussing on enhancing teaching and learning, such as the use of ICT within the classroom, assessment for learning, thinking skills and the new two tier GCSE for mathematics. All of these areas have provoked good discussions and enabled mathematics teachers to share knowledge, expertise and experiences in order for us all to improve and reflect upon our own methodologies and practises. I was also asked to consult with the look and feel of the portal and suggest to the designers areas of interest and content that would appeal to teachers of mathematics. This is an ongoing process and I continue to be involved with the project
I was the test centre manager for ECDL 3 years ago and when I moved to my previous job 2 years ago, I was an invigilator and co-ordinated its delivery for staff and students resulting in improving the skills and confidence in users of ICT.
For the past 5 years I have attended BETT (the educational technological show) at Olympia in London so that I can explore new technologies and resources for use within teaching. One example of new technologies and resources I have then used was when I formed links with the National Space Centre. I then approached the Sheffield East City Learning Centre who hosted a cross curricular mathematics, ICT, science, geography and citizenship project for 25 year 8 students. The students communicated with the centre via a live video conferencing link for a period of 2 hours to simulate a tense rescue operation for the residents on the island of Montserrat. The island was under threat of devastation due to the pending eruption of a volcano and approaching hurricane. The experience was very rewarding for all those involved, the students not only gained vital skills in those areas afore mentioned but also in communicating, team work self confidence and planning. The project was so successful that the City Learning Centre is rolling it out to other schools in the area.
Last year I attended a 5 day Macromedia course to develop my skills in the area of Web page authoring and the use of Flash and Fireworks. The skills I gained were then disseminated within the department and applied to the KS3 ICT curriculum for relevant and innovative learning. At KS4 these skills equipped the students with the relevant tools they needed to produce their e-portfolios for their DiDA qualifications. Many of the students went on to create their own web pages in their spare time.
I was involved in the writing of bids (within 2 separate schools) to successfully gain status as a Mathematics and Computing specialist school and 2nd supporting specialism in ICT and therefore am aware of specialist schools sharing of good practice with other partner schools. Some of my experiences of this includes the Montserrat project which I wrote a report for and shared with “xxxxSecondary school” and initially I tried to make it a cross school experience with xxxxCommunity College, however the logistics of doing so made it unviable. Also, I assisted in the coordination of a transition project for year 6 students from all 3 primary feeder schools, allowing the youngsters to start a PowerPoint project at their school, enhance it using technology at the CLC then add to it at the secondary school and share with their form group and form teaching during their first ICT lessons in September.
My role as a member of the Senior team during the last 2 years afforded me the opportunities to gain and share knowledge and strategies for improving, enhancing and taking risks to provide an environment suitable for stakeholders giving me a whole school strategic overview.
Working with challenging staffing circumstance during the past 2 years has given me an in depth knowledge of ICT systems which has had a positive impact on my working relationships with others and an insight as to how easy it can be to make effective use of ICT to enhance learning and teaching. An example of this was when the sudden resignation of the network manager gave me the opportunity to be responsible for successfully managing budgets of up to £100,000 for ICT development where I was held accountable for the planning, research, bids to tender, selection, recruitment and overseeing its implementation from actual cabling, infrastructure, desktops, laptops, Interactive whiteboards projectors, printers and training with the help of only 2 young technicians. Another example of this was managing the work of a colleague who was on long term sick leave with cancer and the second in department lost a member of her form group during a tragic accident. During this time, I was accountable for the teaching and learning within the department and the successful GCSE grades mentioned further on in this application.
During a period where I was leading the implementation at the pilot phase of the South Yorkshire e-Learning Project, I was invited to present innovative teaching and learning strategies adopted during this project. I attended with some students and demonstrated some of these exciting resources to over 300 delegates at the annual conference as the schools e-learning champion.
My role as a Leading Mathematics Teacher allowed me to work closely with other teachers to assist their professional development, effective lesson planning, adopting strategies for classroom management and developing curriculum skills. The result of which was enhanced and improved confidence for those teaching and therefore raised the quality of teaching and learning.
I have planned, organised and delivered many training sessions for staff generally for the use of ICT. I was a trainer for NOF (New Opportunities Fund) and co-ordinated and led on its implementation weekly for a year. This resulted in an improvement in the use of ICT for planning, preparation and assessment for teaching and enrichment of the learning experiences for staff and students.
I have been invited to be on interview panels at the schools I have worked in as well as at 2 different City Learning centres whilst they were recruiting for staff. My input was valuable as both at teacher and a subject leader in a school, enabling me to assess the candidates’ strengths in the ability to directly influence the quality of teaching and learning whilst working with its partner schools.
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Why do you want to be an AST?Please explain: / •your rationale for wanting to be an AST; and
•your view of how, as an AST, you can improve the quality of teaching and
learning.
I will outline below my rationale for wanting to be an AST
I have been fortunate to have gained experiences in many facets of the education system, as teacher of both Mathematics and ICT and in gaining rewarding experiences as a subject leader and manager of ICT systems. Recently I was involved in the LFTM course run by the NCSL which allowed me to spend a lot of time reflecting on not only my career but other areas of my life. It was during the last year that I realised that I have always had such a passion for Mathematics and for teaching and hence moved from a subject leader for ICT to a Mathematics AST when the opportunity arose.
I discovered that my strengths are in Mathematics but more importantly in the classroom and that working so closely with learners and creating an enthusiastic environment for them coupled with the challenges of being a teacher of mathematics in today’s society,is what am good at. I love seeing the faces of the students light up when they realise why x is not always 2 and they suddenly grasp those aspects of Mathematics they were struggling with. I get a great amount of job satisfaction when students master a very difficult concept then tell me the lesson was “easy” as I believe this is attributable to the way it was delivered, their motivation and the resources used.
I spend a lot of time working on motivation strategies and encouraging youngsters to believe in themselves. I use Assessment for Learning to create a well communicated lesson with structure, such as the sharing of lesson objectives, peer and self assessment, consolidation of learning outcomes to ensure the students have made successful progress. Students always know what is expected of them and I have high expectations relating to their behaviour and the mutual respect towards each others. I strive to create this positive climate for learning in the classroom and pride myself in producing high quality resources and display materials and demonstrating my ability to use leading edge technologywhilst focussing on the ‘Every Child Matters’agenda.
My experiences whilst on the LFTM course have enhanced both my leadership and interpersonal skills which I feel have equipped me for the effective sharing of good practice, therefore as an AST I feel that I can improve the quality of teaching and learning by
- working closely with those students that I teach as outlined above
- working closely with the Teaching and Learning group to coach other teachers to enhance their teaching and learning strategies
- allowing other members of the profession to observe my lessons so as to disseminate and share good and successful practice
- observing,team teaching and supporting in lessons for and withother members of the profession to then provide constructive feedback and promote discussions relating to their strengths and areas for development in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning
- sharing strategies, resources, expertiseand the delivery of new coursesboth from my own experiences and those adopted in other schools that I will work closely with, such as feeder and partner schools including xxxx and xxxx
- developing and disseminating the effective use of ICT for planning, teaching and learning
- having a dedicated slot at each Mathematics department meeting to share ideas and to raise discussion points to further strengthen consistency towards teaching and learning
- producing a fortnightly newsletter, initially for the staff within the department similar to the ICT one previously implemented to be used to raise the quality of teaching and learning. Each issue will have a ready made lesson, or worksheet which can be photocopied which will focus on the area of “algebra” since this is the area many students find the most challenging. Once mastered this will impact upon moving student success from a grade D to a grade C and from level 5 to level 6
- creating opportunities in partnership with the City Learning Centre to offer enriched learning experiences for students and training opportunities for staff to further enhance their teaching
- sharing my experiences with the Single Issue Group which this year is focussing on how we can remodel the structure of the curriculum to meet the needs of the learners within xxxx
- implementing deep learning concepts to enable learners to leave the classroom with the content of the course available to them in their minds, so that they can actually use the content in the "real" world, so that they can have a clearer perspective on what they should be striving to achieve.
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Key AST qualitiesO
Please provide one succinct example from the last 3 years of your achievements and expertise in relation to each of the standards for ASTs shown in Annex 1of this application form.
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1. Excellent results/outcomeAST1 Page 1 of 11
Whilst Head of department at xxxxl 2004-2006, the GCSE results improved from 43.2% in 2004, 57.1% in 2005 and 72.6% in 2006 for A* - C passes. The A* - G passes were as follows; 96.7% 2004, 100% 2005 and 96.8% 2006. The 2 students who failed to receive A* - G were non attenders and failed to turn up to sit their 2 exam papers. I was the teacher of the whole cohort for the 2006 results for 2 years for 2/3 of the students and for the final year for 1/3 of the cohort. The Net Value Added was -34.2 for 2004, -28.6 for 2005 and +11.3 for 2006. The Net Value Added for BME rose from -20 to +20 between 2005 and 2006, for boys it increased from -50 in 2005 to +8.3 in 2006 and for girls it rose from -5 in 2005 to +13.2 in 2006. Value Added calculations are the % of students entered who Overachieve (+), Equal (=) or underachieve (-) as compared to their target grade.Evidence - KS4 Three Year Subject Performance report from xxxxSchool.
I showed evidence in the results obtained atGCSE Mathematics as follows
All y9 students who I taught made an improvement of at least 1 level in their SATs, indeed 70% of the students achieved an advancement of 2 levels.
GCSE results
Grade C 10 students which was 38.5% of group
Grade B 10 students which was 38.5% of group
Grade A/A* 6 students which was 23% of group
Their KS3 resultswere
L6 13 students which was 50% of the group
L7 10 students which was38% of the group
L8 3 students which was 12% of the group
of the 13 students who achieved L6, 31% achieved grade B, 69% achieved grade C
of the 10 students who achieved L7, 30% achieved grade A, 60% achieved grade B and 10% achieved grade C
of the 3 students who achieved L8, 33% achieved A* and 67% achieved grade A
Evidence threshold application
The top scoring students from the Junior Mathematical Challenge were students that I taught and coached for the competition.
Evidence - Junior Mathematical Challenge results form
WhenI took a years break from xxxx High School to raise my children, on my return my hard work and commitment saw an increase in the GCSE ICT results from 34% to 54% A* - C.I also improved the KS3 ICT results for L5+ by 10%.
Evidence - data from xxxxHigh School
I had the responsibility for the ECDL output targets for the E-sy.info project and I have ensured that the school has met its targets and at times exceeded these targetswith all learners.I have led Fun camps in school and at the SECLC and by working through lunchtime and after school sessions.50 of these students have not only gained the L2 output but a grade B at GCSE.
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