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Appendix 10: North Atlantic Conference
Evaluation of the School of Ambition North Atlantic Conference 20-25 May 2007
Summary
Background
A member of the Research to Support Schools of Ambition team from Aberdeen University joined the eighteen staff, three Anderson High School ( AHS) Schools of Ambition ( SoA) team members and twenty five students from seven Schools of Ambition, together with a SEED Senior Adviser SoA, on a five day North Atlantic Conference aboard a ferry boat. The boat provided a base for staff and students to work together and share experiences whilst travelling to and including visits to sites and towns in Faroe and Iceland.
The conference aims were to: provide a forum for Schools of Ambition to share practice from student and staff perspectives; share challenges and opportunities; establish sustainable and transferable practice within and between schools; and contribute to the virtual research environment film clips and snapshots of work undertaken.
The aim of the researcher's attendance was to evaluate the impact of the conference on the schools' transformational journeys. This included obtaining the staff and students' perceptions of their experiences.
Findings
The evaluation identified the following benefits of the conference for the staff:
- networking opportunities;
- learning from and sharing experiences with others;
- opportunity to adapt other schools' work to their own circumstances;
- share ideas of what works and does not;
- extended period of time to work with others ;
- breaking down of barriers.
The benefits of the conference for the students were:
- increased pupil confidence, being more communicative;
- increased communication skills;
- shared what are doing with other students;
- the students' sense of pride in their school;
- forged new relationships with students from other schools;
- established positive relationships with ASN students;
- ongoing contact with students in other schools;
- developed all the four capacities of the Curriculum for Excellence.
Concluding Comments
The School of Ambition North Atlantic conference provided an opportunity for staff and students to share a unique learning environment. Opportunities were built into the programme for staff to meet and share practice, ideas and future aspirations and learn from each other. Similar opportunities to meet were offered to students e.g. giving a presentation about their school's activities and future plans, and creating a film together of a modern day Viking saga. The North Atlantic conference was perceived by the staff to have an added value compared to other School of Ambition events they had attended. The smaller numbers of staff involved and a longer sustained period of time for staff to work together and build relationships provided an opportunity to maximise the learning experiences further.
From the evidence gathered from the staff and students, the North Atlantic conference achieved its aims in providing a forum for Schools of Ambition to share practice from student and staff perspectives, and share challenges and opportunities by impacting on the staff and students in the beneficial ways detailed above.
The key factors which enabled this were:
- having an extended period of time for staff and students to build up relationships and work together;
- face to face contact;
- a programme which provided structured opportunities.
The conference also helped the staff and students to establish ideas for transferable practice both within and between schools. The challenge for the schools will be to maintain the momentum gained from the conference, by building on it with their planned collaboration activities in order to sustain the achievements from the conference, and assist them on their transformational journeys. It is also important that both the staff and students share their experiences of the conference and what they learned with other Schools of Ambition.
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