The idea

I attended a great professional development session a couple of evenings ago. Organised at a local grassroots level, it was highly successful. What was it about, and what made it good?

The basic idea, hatched by Anthony Evans and Dave Smith, is pretty simple. There is a lot of good stuff going on in the North London area as far as educational ICT is concerned. The people who make it happen are enthusiastic, love to share what they're doing, and get on well. So why not slightly formalise the chance meetings into a regular event specifically for the purpose of exchanging information and ideas?

A small group of Local Authorities was represented, these being Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Islington, Newham and Redbridge. I was asked to chair the event, because being not employed by any of them, I would be independent, and seen to be so.

In the course of two hours, from 7pm to 9pm, we had presentations of up to 15 minutes from each Local Authority. One of Anthony's colleagues, Nick, intends to blog about the event, so I won't go into too much detail here about what was actually said. I'm more interested in the general principles and the process.

What we learnt

In general terms, we learnt the following:

• Each LA is struggling with pretty much the same sets of issues.
  
  
• Each LA had come up with a (possible) answer in one or more areas, so sharing the information has potentially saved a lot of time for people.
  
  
• The LA is pivotal in making things happen at a local level. Schools rarely have the time or even the expertise to do the research, experimentation, making contacts and so on that is often required to get the best solution in a given set of circumstances.
  
  
• LAs also have the knowledge to be able to advise schools on what is likely to work best, or not work very well, and to be able to broker useful deals with companies on behalf of schools.
  
  Of course, you'd expect LA people to say that sort of thing, but experience shows that lots of public money can be wasted when schools go it alone. Where the LA adopts a facilitative role, as opposed to merely a controlling one, the results can be marvellous.
  
  
• Nobody has enough time with local ICT co-ordinators. In some areas it's as little as a two hour meeting once a year. That's not really enough, but unlikely to change any time soon.
  
  Hopefully, the expanded use of the web, and video conferencing (even if only with a webcam) will help to reduce the impact of such little contact time -- although I do believe that face-to-face meetings, even if only occasional, are essential in all fields of human endeavour.

What makes such meetings work?

I would say the following, from this experience:

• It helps if the people know each other, but this is not essential. There were a couple of people at the meeting whom I have come across before but don't really know, and it still worked fine. However, knowing the others does help, especially if (a) there is mutual respect and trust built up over a few years and (b) they enjoy each other's company. Between us there was plenty of both of those elements in place.
  
  
• These meetings work when there is commitment. Nobody was being paid to be there. In fact, having already done a presentation at the Westminster Forum that morning and attended a meeting in the afternoon, the last thing I felt like doing was going to yet another meeting in the evening, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt like that.
  
  Basically, you need a commitment to your own professional development, to yourself (because attending such meetings could save you effort and time in the long run) and to your fellow travellers.
  
  The fact that people turned up voluntarily is an obvious indication of commitment. The corollary is that if you try to make people come to meetings at inconvenient times, you had better make it worth their while, and as pleasant an experience as possible.
  
  
• In this instance, the meeting was certainly worthwhile, and was made pleasant not only by the company but by the provision of sweets, crisps and various types of (non-alcoholic) drinks. Great stuff, although as I am profoundly lacking in willpower I probably consumed more calories, more E numbers and more caffeine in those two hours than I had in the previous two weeks!
  
  
• I also think having a competent chair of the proceedings helps enormously, but of course I would say that! Seriously, though: I do think you need a bit of management in these situations, because it's so easy to lose track of time when talking about things you're passionate about. Fortunately, a couple of people afterwards said they thought I'd done a good job, which pleased me greatly as I would have hated to have let anyone down.

Conclusion

I don't think anything I've said will come as a surprise to anybody. However, it's sometimes good to state the obvious, to remind ourselves of what works. After two hours in that meeting, we all came away with copious notes of things to try and things to look up. We also left with more energy that we arrived with.

Thanks to Anthony for organising it, and to everyone for making it such a fun and productive evening.

So when is your next local grassroots meeting taking place?

You can now read about the event in detail, thanks to Anthony Evans' sterling write-up.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.