How to hold a curriculum meeting

If a sudden bout of the norovirus hits the classroom whenever you’re due to hold a training event, perhaps it’s time to rethink your delivery, says Sue Cowley...

Before …

Andrea is deputy headteacher and the literacy co-ordinator at her school. She often has to hold curriculum meetings and host training events. She worries that her fellow teachers seem bored and uninspired, particularly by her Powerpoint presentations. She also finds it really hard to get them to participate. Andrea wants to know how she can get them more involved during meetings, and ensure they leave feeling inspired and ready to try out new approaches.

The makeover

Make it relevant to staff, so that they can connect personally with what you’re teaching them. We are most likely to engage with a subject if it relates to our own experiences and interests. Andrea should consider how the topics she’s covering link to the staff she’s working with. For instance, if she’s talking about developing children’s love of reading, she could start by asking staff how they feel about reading, and what their favourite books and genres are.

Avoid ‘death by Powerpoint’ at all costs. Use the same teaching and learning techniques that you would use with your children, adapted for the older age group. I’ve often seen teachers fall back on using a Powerpoint presentation when they’re working with adults. It’s like a ‘security blanket’.

Where Andrea does need to use a Powerpoint presentation to get her key points across, she should use this as a useful reminder of what she wants to cover, rather than reading it out to her audience. If she gives a paper handout, or puts the presentation on the school’s VLE, she can ask staff to read it in full after the meeting.

Keep the learning hands on, kinaesthetic and active. Meetings typically take place after the school day has finished. Andrea should bear in mind that staff will be tired and it will be hard for them to focus. It’s tempting to talk a lot, because you want to convey the information in the shortest possible time. But remember: this is not the most effective method for learning, and it will probably result in staff starting to nod off! Andrea should limit the amount of talking she does, using hands-on and interactive approaches instead.

Give staff a reason and a motivation to join in, taking a jokey rather than a serious approach. When I’m training a group of teachers, I use a raffle ticket system to encourage volunteers (each volunteer receives a ticket). At the start of the session, I tell them that the winner of the raffle will receive a ‘two weeks, all expenses paid cruise in the Caribbean’. Of course they realise that I’m joking (the prize is actually one of my books), but by adding some fun to the idea of volunteering, I manage to get the teachers involved.

Use props and resources to ‘hook’ your audience and keep their attention. Andrea should incorporate plenty of visual aids to keep the staff engaged and involved. For example, if she was looking at the use of large puppets to encourage speaking skills, she could get the staff to pass around the puppet and use it to give their ideas during the meeting.