Behaviour & beyond: Creating a culture of inclusion and belonging

On 12 June we welcomed 140 trainee teachers from ITT providers across Buckinghamshire at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre and Buckinghamshire New University for this year’s Buckinghamshire Educational Priorities Conference.

This year's conference had the theme of behaviour, focusing on communication, inclusion and belonging,

Victoria Morris, from the DfE Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, opened the conference with a keynote on the protective factor of education - exploring the role that schools play in safeguarding vulnerable students.

Fifteen workshops throughout the day covered topics ranging from empowering students to self-regulate, using relationship building to tackle low level misbehaviour, understanding the teenage brain, proactive planning for anxious students, to name just a few. It was fantastic to see teachers and leaders from schools across Buckinghamshire facilitate these sessions and we are very grateful for the time and energy they put into these workshops.

Khaiam Shabbir, Headteacher of Cressex Community School in High Wycombe, concluded the conference with his session on the architecture of belonging - creating climates that support breaking down of barriers and building bridges.

 

Many thanks to everyone involved in this conference. The Buckinghamshire Educational Priorities Conference is an annual collaboration between Astra Teacher Training and Buckinghamshire New University, which has at its heart a commitment to contributing to system-wide education improvement in Buckinghamshire. We were delighted to collaborate with partners from other Buckinghamshire-based training providers, including the Buckingham Partnership, Chepping View SCITT and Insignis Academy Trust.

Delegates left with much food for thought and practical teaching strategies, ready for their first posts as ECTs in September.

Below are just a few quotes from the attendees:

All of them were brilliant - very knowledgeable, very efficient in terms of considered and well-paced content and they all delivered their sessions with real energy. 

 

Thank you so much for sharing such an insightful perspective. It was really thought provoking.