OUR FINAL PD DAY..

Over the last 8 years,  my friends Jenny, Jannett Sue and I have organised a PD day for Teacher Aides in our region.  It has grown from humble beginnings where we had 45 Teacher Aides attend our first PD day in 2011 to this year where we worked with other Teacher Aides in our region to help them organise PD days to cater for the growing number of Teacher Aides who want to attend. This year, between Rocky, Primary and High School, Mackay, Gladstone and Biloela, over 600 Teacher Aides got to receive excellent PD in our region.

My friend Jenny retired this year, and the rest of us are heading down that road also in the next few years, so we have decided to  put a call out for other Teacher Aides to take this PD on in our city, otherwise it is going to die...  It is time to hand the reigns on to others,  new input, fresh ideas are a great way to ensure that these sort of PD days remain relevant to our profession.  We are happy to help initially and give guidance where needed but ultimately we know that that with new blood brings new ideas....

Organising these days has been one of the highlights of my career as a Teacher Aide and it has been great to give something back to young Teacher Aides entering this profession.    It has strengthened my friendships with the other girls, and has allowed networking to happen between lots of teacher aides in our region.  This can only be a good thing as we share ideas and learn together...

In some ways I will be sad to step down, but the timing is right...

Anyway some photos of our day this year....

Excellent present - great session on engaging students...

 We also had sessions on Superannuation and the Union spoke of their progress with the new TA EB.  All pretty informative....

Once again our PD was held at the Frenchville Sports Club and what an excellent job they do for us each year....

And of course Jenny and I had our photos taken together.  We were the original organisers of the Teacher Aides Learning Together PD day, and when it grew too large for us to cater for the numbers at our school, we roped Jannett and Sue in from Glenmore State School to help. Jenny retired this year but she still came back to help us and spend the day with us for our PD...

Jenny and I

Jenny, myself and Jannett.

 I missed the PD day last year due to us taking time out to do our lap around Australia.  This year it was Sue's time to miss the day as she was away on leave also....
 Good to have these photos as memories of some great times we have had with the Teacher Aides in our region....