Maths and English teachers from across the Tees Valley came together, recently, for the second annual mE+ Conference. The conference is one of a kind in that it is organised by English and maths teachers for English and maths teachers with the aim of developing practice in order to support further education learners to succeed in these essentially important subjects.
The College’s Head of English and maths, Jonathan Kay, was one of the organising committee and he said “It’s now nearly seven years since Professor Alison Wolf published her review on vocational education and the duty was placed upon FE colleges to deliver maths and English for learners who didn’t reach a ‘good’ pass whilst at school. This conference signals just one of many ways in which the FE sector has embraced this challenge and continues to provide the best opportunities for our learners.”
The conference saw over 170 delegates hear from the Association of Colleges’, Catherine Sezen, in her rousing keynote before experiencing workshops from experts in the fields of further and secondary education, specialist teaching, children’s hypnotherapy and discipline coaching as well as from Ofsted’s senior inspector, Steve Hailstone. All members of the College’s English and maths team were in attendance, Jonathan added “We are constantly looking to improve our practice to provide the best opportunities for our learners. The team work tirelessly, in-house, developing and refining their resources and delivery but it was great to share that good practice, at the conference, with colleagues from other colleges and to learn from them as well as the experts in attendance”.
Principal, Darren Hankey, was in attendance and provided the conference’s closing remarks, he reflected “The introduction of mandatory English and maths has created a real challenge for the FE sector but one, as a college, we have embraced. I am really proud of our recent performance. We have the best progress rates in the North East and are also in the top 5% and 20% nationally for maths and English, respectively, and more and more learners gaining that elusive ‘good’ pass after years of trying in secondary school. However, we’ll not rest on our laurels and this conference is evidence of that. The wonderful teams from our college and those in seven other local colleges are committed to improving the lives of our learners through gaining ‘good’ English and maths grades.”
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View the photo gallery of the event here >> http://bit.ly/MECon19Photos
