Thursday, December 29, 2016

ANOTHER DAY OF LEARNING TOGETHER


Our PD day just seems to get bigger every year..
Last year we had 245 registered and we still had to turn Teacher Aides away.  Our venue wouldn't hold any more than that so this year we made the decision to split the PD day again and host it in two different Venue...
The Primary school Teacher Aides would have their day at the Frenchville Sports Club again, and we would run a separate Pd for the High School Teacher Aides...
Registrations went crazy with it once again all being filled within a couple of weeks.  Over all  in both of the two venues, we had 320 teacher aides attend this year.

This has become way bigger than Jenny and I ever envisaged when we first set out to provide something for Teacher Aides back in 2011.  Our dream and goal was to give back to a profession that we loved,  to encourage and provide other Teacher Aides with the tools they needed to become effective encouragers of students learning.  Now none of this success would be possible without the help of both Jannett and Sue who come on board with us in 2012 when we outgrew our school and were turning 100s away.    It would also not be possibly without the magnificent support of the Teacher Aides and Principals in our district. 

The exciting thing for all of us girls, is that even though we have all been Teacher Aides 20+ years, we get something out of these days also,  not only that but we have a wonderful time networking with the amazing group of aides we have in our district....

This year we went with bright bright bright..... Fluro bright.  Once again we bought gifts for all the TAs in the form of a fluro coloured pencil case with rubber, ruler and pencil in....our table decorations were colourful and the place looked amazing....

The weekend before the PD day was really busy especially for Jenny, Sue and I as we spent most of Sunday at the two venues, setting up making sure that it was all looking great ready to start the following morning... We have enlisted a couple of TAs from the high school and we have worked closely with them this year to set up their PD and to make sure that everything was uniform.....

The High School Room set up for their PD...
Jenny, Sue and I with Jacque and Deb from the High School
 Then it was over to the Frenchville Club for us to set up our venue for the following morning...
Setting up the rooms at the Frenchville club for the TAs Ptrimary PD..
Close up of our tables
Close up of our Table decorations
Our table decorations fro the luncheon tables
Once again we had a very full program lined up for the day, so we always make sure that we start promptly at 8.30am in the morning.

Both  the Principal from our school and the Deputy Principal from the other school spoke and welcomed the teacher aides and affirmed their value in their schools today. 

All TAs were seated and ready to start the day right on 8.30am
We also show a PowerPoint Protestation of previous PDs whilst we are waiting to start the day....
Our Principal welcoming the TAs
 Introducing our main presenter for the day from Mindworks.  He was brilliant,  we could have listened to him all day

Our main presenter Laurie from Mindworks....
The Frenchville Sports Club always put on a great spread for us>  I was too busy at morning tea and therefore missed pulling my camera out, but I did manage to snap a few lunch photos of our amazing lunch..
some of our lunch
Beautiful fresh fruit platte
Always plenty of food....
 Our presenter was brilliant, he had everyone engaged room the moment he took command of the room.

 The sessions were very interactive and he had us getting up and down out of our chairs the whole day, and this certainly helped to keep us alert and focused.
Laurie - our main presenter from Mindworks
He certainly had us all engaged...

 He did this amazing memory test with us and gave us some amazing strategies  to help us remember  long lists of things.... all things we could use with students when working with them
 We would definitely use this presenter again,  in fact our feedback from everyone was excellent, with so many teacher aides letting us know that they got so much out of his session.

Noel our afternoon session presenter
 Our afternoon presenter spoke about the new Well being framework that is running in most of the schools.  He was no were near as engaging as the morning presenter, but then his topic wasn't anywhere near as exciting, but still a framework that we needed to be aware of.  Mind you he did have rather a hard act to follow also after our morning presenter..

It was a great day...
I must say though, I am kind of pleased that it is over for this year....
A couple of months break before we have to start thinking about it all over again.

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