More tips from Sonia Thompson
Video transcript
okay so yeah what is your third tip for us today please okay my third tip is make use of the mpqs i am a big advocate of mpq’s make use of them they are free and they provide some quality opportunities um for training coaching and to expand your teaching network so so just to introduce you sorry for the benefit of people who don’t know what mpqs are can you just give us a bit of background on those it’s the national professional qualification i think it kind of links to my two because i talked about those who want to stay in the classroom but i also talked about those who want to make that leap so there are it’s the national professional qualifications provided by the dfe but filtered through different organizations to deliver them so you’ve got mpqs for headship of course senior leadership leading teachers um there’s new ones that are coming on for literacy and for early years so there’s a range of opportunities for mpq’s and as i said they are free so we’re not we’re not using school budget to pay for these but what you’re developing here again and again it links to my first point in my second point of pathways for teachers to read to expand their learning to deepen their subject knowledge i am all about professional development for our teachers we’re one from entry school here but every teacher in my school who wants to do some training has got that opportunity um i i i i’ve been i’m i’ve been dm’d by somebody who says my senior leadership team has said no to me doing an mpq and i said why why would they say that they’re free everybody should have a pathway this is a career that we’re in and as i said you either want to stay in the classroom or you want to move into senior leadership team if you want to move whatever that pathway is let’s make sure that we’ve got that organized within our schools and not leave it up to chance and the mpqs are a great way of doing that now this is interesting this because this is an area just the kind of career i’ve chosen i’ve never had to encounter one of these mpqs and i’ve heard real mixed bags about the year some people who kind of see them just as a thing you’ve got to jump through a few hoops and then you hear other people like yourself who kind of really sing their praises so let’s just imagine we’ve got a teacher listening here who wants to progress in their career maybe they want to become a head maybe as you say as a teacher and so on firstly if this isn’t a stupid question where do they go to access these and then how would you advise they they make use of them if you want to find out um obviously the dfe website has a link to all the mpqs and i’ve got to declare a little bit of an interest here because i am i am on the dfe group for the mpqs and the ects but i am going to be proud of that because they are battling to make these the best that they can be and we know that there’s been teething problems we know that there’s been they’ve been issues but one of the things that they are really trying to do is ensure that teach there is that underpinning of research and as i said there is no research that is going to tell us what it is that’s going to make the difference for every child we know that there’s but there are some best bets and as teachers we know that we whatever we want to deliver in that classroom we want it to be based around what’s going to make the difference so if once you get onto the dfe website there are providers so um we do mpqsl which is the church of england i’m going to advocate sign up for church of england no i’m not going to um obviously ambition um teacher development trust there’s lots of providers that you can sign up to and each is you know they’ve got some key things that they’ve got to do so there is an opportunity for coaching some really good professional development around using research and applying it to case studies getting a chance to talk about and as i said expand your own network i just think it’s so critical that we don’t become just in our schools and you talk to yourself craig about that opportunity to go out to other schools when you’re in asd and i just think that broadens your horizons so just having the opportunity to come together with other practitioners who are working to in the same kind of way as you and having those conversations i think that’s just invaluable i mean it sounds an absolutely fantastic thing for the individual teacher to yeah but as you’ve alluded to there you see sometimes schools aren’t supportive of this so if you were speaking to a school leader who had a member of staff who was keen to do one what would you say to the school leader what’s in it for the school i think what you’re getting is a member of staff as i said he was going to be have a key understanding of the latest bits of research around education they are going to be reading they are going to be analyzing they’re going to be talking to other colleagues they’re going to have a chance to really reflect on what’s currently happening within their school setting because there are certain modules that each of the mpqs have to involve for instance culture how critical is culture for schools to move forward they’ll look at teaching and learning they’ll look at behavior all of those key drivers that all schools need to need people to understand so the more you can build a set some staff who’ve got that understanding and that evidence space behind it i think that can only be a bit of a benefit to schools so yeah fantastic