UFA Fellow - Sarah Todd

Biography

Sarah Todd became a UFA Fellow in 2002 when Somerset ran its first Fellowship Training after becoming a Phase 4 UFA partner authority in April 2002. Sarah works at Stanchester Community School in Somerset; this is an 11 - 16 comprehensive with over 900 students. Sarah gained Advanced Skills Teacher status in 2001.

Healthy Scepticism

On day one, at the start of the Fellowship training, Sarah had a healthy scepticism about the quotes she was shown on the impact the UFA Fellowship training had had on other Fellows around the country. However she now acknowledges that all the comments she saw during her presentation also apply to her and now she says that the UFA training changed her life.

The Training Programme

I had always been an instinctive teacher and I have always loved what I do and enjoy teaching greatly. I trained in 1990/01 and until UFA, my knowledge of brain-based learning was bitty. I loved producing lessons and when ideas ran dry; I pinched and plundered new modeling ideas and lesson plans from my colleagues. When I took part in the first Fellowship days it made me recognize that what I was doing in the classroom was right and most importantly they explained to me why it worked! It gave me a more complete picture and I felt it empowered me with new ways to judge my classroom practice and success. Two 'wow' moments for me were recognizing my own intelligences and testing myself to learn outside them. These made me want to stretch and challenge my own pupils and empower them.

Back to the Classroom

On returning to school I felt energized and inspired. I immediately brought new ideas into the classroom. I invested in post-its, highlighters, play dough and music. I changed my style with my most difficult year 11 group, which was a huge risk. I asked them to visualize, to model river features in play dough, to sing and rap. I had always had a repertoire of activities but I have never really given choices. But I noticed that over time their learning and behaviour definitely improved so the risk paid off.

Before I would practice thinking skills but rarely enthused the kinaesthetic learner. I made this my mission. I had lots of quests, dance routines for the plate boundaries, washing lines of opinion on globalization, the long shore drift walk to name but a few. Students noticed. They loved the changes. It appears to have worked.

Spreading the Word

This success has not just been mine and my students. I work in a dynamic and young department who fed off my enthusiasm and knowledge to produce superb ideas for us all to share. Our classes built a rainforest on the wall of the classroom, thanks to Sally our NQT. We had a car chase through the zones of the city thanks to Melissa, our Head of Department. When you are in a sharing team the ideas flourish.

In school I have run eight workshops based on brain based learning, with my two AST colleagues. We had a superb turn out, our feeder primary schools sent colleagues and Learning Support Assistants took part. In total we had over 21 of our own school staff and 30 staff from our consortium of secondary and feeder primary schools take part. Comments from the workshops included: 'inspiring', 'I now know why some teachers were so successful', 'I feel empowered', 'I will definitely try music in my lessons' and 'it reinforced my existing knowledge'.

The Future

The future is bright at Stanchester. UFA ideas are taking off. We have a learning working party which meets to share good practice.  We are organizing two Super Learning Days for all our pupils in September. We are running 'Brain Friendly Revision' courses for our parents so they can support their children at home. We are running a further set of twilight insets on developing and continuing good learning.  In November we are meeting up with our primary schools to learn and share again. The UFA gave me more confidence to share and increased my love of teaching which I did not think was possible!

Lead Trainer

Sarah is now one of the lead trainers in Somerset and has attended the UFA 'Train the Trainers' day with Somerset partnership manager Sarah Miller and together with Sarah will lead the next Fellowship 1 training in Somerset.

For more information about this case study, contact:

Sarah Todd

sarahtodd.home@talk21.com

Stanchester Community School, Somerset