Botwell Teaching Assistants

Well, this is a worry isn't it. I don't know when we'll get time to have a proper meeting again. It's difficult for everyone to be available at the same time. At least we managed to get a meeting with Sean about the Personal development folders. I hope you all liked the idea. As soon as we can get them copied in bulk you can have a copy to scribble your ideas on. Then we can finalise the format and have them all printed.
Following that meeting, training was on the minds of a few people, and they mentioned that it would be handy for more or all LSAs to have their first aid certificate. This would be useful for school trips to save pulling first aiders from other year groups. Also, if the Welfare Assistant is at lunch or unavailable, it would be useful to be able to handle a situation without having to hunt out a first aider, after all, who can't clean and dress a grazed knee, if necessary? Three people have expresed an interest and Sean has agreed to get this sorted out, so if anyone else is interested, please let me know.
Also with regard to training, I have been asked how people are being chosen for courses. The answer is that many of the courses being attended at the moment have been arranged by the SENCO for the SENLSAs. There is a book listing training courses in the staff room, or if it is missing the deputy head has a copy. You can look through and if you would like to attend a particular course mention it to me, or a member of the senior management team, and we will ask for approval.
I'll try to keep you updated as things occur.

Apologies for having to cancell our meeting which was to be held last Thursday. Unfortunately I had flu. I will re-schedule the meeting as sson as possible, when I have checked a suitable time with senior management.

I've had a couple of problems with my last TA blog, so I've transferred all the information to this new blog instead. Hopefully this time you'll be able to leave comments if you wish.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Welcome
I've created this Blog (web log) so that I can record useful information for us which will be easy to access (I hope!). I plan to keep a record of the minutes of our meetings here, plus links to other sites which may be useful to us.
This site has a lot of useful information including training
Teachernet

I promised to give you web sites that would be useful to check your numeracy and literacy skills.
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/learning
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/resources/livesite/index3.cfm?pf=displayIntro&exid=33
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/resources/livesite/index3.cfm?pf=displayIntro&exid=35
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/index.shtmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/index.shtml

If you want to improve your own Literacy Skills this course of five concise self-study modules is appropriate for all teachers/Teaching Assistants who wish to improve their grammatical knowledge or to consolidate recent training. Each module lasts no more than 15 minutes and delivers the pertinent points through animation and attractive graphics. Use the following link to access the training modules
http://www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/literacy/prof_dev/self_study/
More posting will appear on the Blog as they occur.
Please feel free to leave a comment.
posted by Avril 1:25 PM