CLPL Currently on Offer

January 2024

Course Overview

Delivering the session: Professor Claire Cassidy

Why are we here?  Am I awake or am I dreaming?  Is there an end to space?  What makes something wrong?

Have you ever thought about or puzzled over these questions?  Children and young people do… all the time!  This short course will help you generate philosophical discussions to help children and young people explore these types of questions. 

Looking for opportunities to promote talking and listening in your classroom? Enthusiastic about interdisciplinary learning? Seeking approaches to develop children’s thinking and reasoning?  Keen to promote children’s and young people’s voice and participation? Conscious that children and young people are interested in asking questions and exploring possible answers?  Then, this short course is for you.

The session(s) will introduce practitioners to practical philosophy with children and young people. We will consider how to source a good stimulus to provoke philosophical questions, how to choose good philosophical questions to start dialogue, and how to create conditions conducive to philosophy in the classroom. Participants will also engage in philosophical dialogue at their own level and reflect on how they might create a philosophical, thinking ethos in their classroom while considering how it might support their teaching.

This course is suitable for the following participants: early years practitioners; primary teachers; secondary teachers; headteachers; third sector/NGOs; academics; and students

Course Overview

Delivering the session: Kathryn McCrorie

Mentoring is a term frequently used in education but what does it really mean for those supporting secondary students on placement? These two seminars seek to explore the concept of mentoring, the role of the school-based mentor within initial teacher education (ITE) and how to mentor ITE students actively and positively. The Donaldson Report (2011) emphasised the importance of mentoring for ITE students while they are on placement, and the GTCS Professional Standards reflect the importance of developing positive relationships including the need  to “work collaboratively to contribute to the professional learning and development of colleagues, including student teachers” (2021 p11).

These sessions are aimed at current or aspiring ITE mentors in secondary schools to provide some practical guidance in developing as a reflective and teacher-orientated mentor, with a view to supporting the development of autonomous and effective student-teachers with a positive attitude to life-long professional learning. The topics covered in the sessions include:

Session 1 – The context for mentoring within Scottish schools, the purpose of mentoring in ITE and developing a positive mentor-mentee relationship; and

Session 2 – An exploration of effective approaches to working with your mentee.

This course is suitable for the following participants: secondary teachers

February 2024

Course Overview

Delivering the session: William Quirke

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is one of the core elements of Learning for Sustainability and, as such, is featured in the GTCS Standards for Full Registration, Curriculum for Excellence and How Good is Our School 4. ESD is also an international approach that is used to address global challenges relating to social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

In this session, participants will engage with the Sustainable Development Goals and reflect on how these can be integrated into their professional practice. This will be complemented by an exploration of pedagogical approaches that can be used to give learners the knowledge, skills and agency needed to address both local and global sustainability challenges. Through this, participants will reflect on their own stance towards local and global issues and how this is reflected in their practice.

This course is suitable for the following participants: primary teachers and secondary teachers

Course Overview

Delivering the session: Jane Catlin

This offering involves two interactive online sessions designed to support creative approaches to inclusion. These sessions are participatory so participants should come prepared to do some low stakes drawing, and to have their Zoom cameras switched on to unleash the power of drawing for learning and fun in your classroom. 

Whether you are you a habitual drawer, doodler, or, whether you would say “but I cannae draw the curtains!” this forum might be for you. We will discuss the benefits drawing can bring to everyone’s mental wellbeing, why it is an important thinking tool for learning, and how it extends and enhances children’s literacy skills. We will discuss current research evidence on why drawing is a powerful memory tool which can be used across every curricular area. You will participate in some practical drawing activities that can be easily applied into your classroom practice and that change your perceptions about what drawing is for. This CLPL activity will be especially useful for practitioners working in multilingual classrooms, and working with learners who struggle with traditional approaches to literacy.

This course is suitable for the following participants: early years practitioners; primary teachers; secondary teachers; any child care or community arts setting; Further Education lecturers; policy makers (expressive arts, literacy, creativity, CfE)