VISION FOR THE FUTURE…
New Director of Teaching and Learning Leon Walmsley and Head of Inclusion Kelly Sharp explain why passionate teaching leads to passionate learning at St Mary’s College. Photography: Kirsten Platt
With 850 students, St Mary’s College is a hub of learning where students are nurtured, encouraged and inspired.
As part of its ongoing commitment to developing enhanced teaching and learning strategies, the college recently appointed Leon Walmsley and Kelly Sharp, who will both take on new roles.
As the newly appointed Director of Teaching and Learning, Mr Walmsley, launched into his role with a hugely successful inset day featuring a carousel of guest speakers who gave presentations on innovative ways to challenge and enthuse students in the classroom.
A former pupil and English teacher at the school, Mr Walmsley explains: “My role will be to look at how we can continue moving forwards and continue to give our students the very best experience.
“The staff here are brilliant, they understand that passionate teaching leads to passionate learning. This is about celebrating and championing what we are good at and identifying areas we want to develop.”
Promoting a ‘joined-up’ approach, triangulating teaching and learning with the sharing of best practice, is very much on Mr Walmsley’s agenda in his new role.
“We need to recognise and utilise the skills of others to maximise our potential,” enthuses Mr Walmsley. “E-learning is an area, in particular, that I want to focus on. Many members of staff are experts in using technology in the classroom. These are skills I want to harness and disseminate across college.”
“Ed-tech plays a key part in my future vision for teaching and learning in the college. We already use a variety of interactive tools and applications, such as Pearltrees, Kahoot, Lilo, Padlet, edublogs and Twitter, to inspire students and promote autonomous learning, but I want to take this further. When it comes to technology, there’s still enormous untapped potential out there.”
Augmenting the skillset of teaching staff automatically improves the student experience, and, in the long term, informal ‘teaching and learning pods’ will be established so staff from different faculties can discuss teaching strategies.
“It is all about sharing and identifying best practice to motivate our students so that they can excel at college.”
Sharing Mr Walmsley’s vision, is new Head of Inclusion Kelly Sharp, also a former pupil, who has been teaching at the college for 20 years. She will be supporting students with special educational needs (SEN) ensuring they have access to all areas of the academic curriculum as well as giving them full access to college life.
“Well-being is very much at the forefront in education at the moment and we are seeing more students with stress and anxiety issues.”
“It is our job to ensure that those with SEN, including mental health issues, are completely supported. It is about ensuring our teaching staff have strategies to support our learners, whether they have learning difficulties or mental health issues, it should not stop their aspirations.”
“Students all have different learning needs. We can individualise packages, working around students and adapting lessons. That’s part of our mission.”
“We have had some fantastic success stories with students with SEN going on to university. It’s all about supporting them through their time here.”
St Mary’s College
Shear Brow, Blackburn BB1 8DX
01254 580464
www.stmarysblackburn.ac.uk
