Donnelly's Blog

SLE School to School Support

23/01/2017 2:43 pm

In my last post I talked about the benefits I feel I have being part of a teaching school that deploys SLEs. (Please read my previous post if you are unsure what an SLE is).

I thought I would just highlight some of the areas I have assisted with so any readers could either considering becoming an SLE themselves or might feel you could do with a visit from an SLE from your local area.

SLE work should be planned over a pre-agreed length of time, some of my contracts have been for one day or three days. If the contract is for a three day, it will more than likely be split into some half days so that the points of discussion can be followed up on. The sort of projects I have help with are:

Full re-structure of Key Stage 3 so that the curriculum feeds into Key Stage 4. This is really enjoyable work as I get to help design way Design and Technology is taught in schools other than my own.
Practical Workshop Days, I love doing these. Very often I have been asked to go to a school to provide training on teaching D&T in a workshop, mostly I pick some projects that suit the facilities the department has, and then deliver the way I would teach pupils to make the same projects. These days are great for teachers that have taught outside of the workshop for a number of years.
Autodesk Inventor 2016, a great free CAD package that can be easily used to link to 3D printing.
Autodesk Fusion 360, my favourite CAD package, truly amazing photo quality renders can be produced with Fusion.
3D Printing in the classroom and how to manage one printer with a large class.
How to draw and design using an iterative designing method.

If any of the above sounds like it could be useful to you, and you are close to Bolton (BL49RU), please email me donnellyj@st-james.Bolton.sch.uk and I can come to your school or arrange a meeting to work through any D&T/Leadership issues you have.