Tara 365 Training and Coaching Services to help you manage the COVID-19 response during the coming year.

 (These should be delivered in the context of your review of what worked and did not work for students and teachers since March 2020). Your future initiatives must be agile to cater for changing circumstances that may arise)

1.  Basic staff IT skills for classroom and distance teaching and learning (most popular service)

Training on specific topics to upskill all teach­ers as requested by the school and build on existing skills including those acquired since May.

In all of these workshops and training sessions we can bring new ideas from our knowledge of successful initiatives in other Irish schools or from our extensive international work with schools in the middle east as well as our daily monitoring of ongoing research releases.  At all times in schools our approach is to use the Department’s “Looking at our school” framework to evaluate the effectiveness of each proposed initiative and evaluate afterwards. Schools are encouraged to work together where feasible to access these services if this is considered practical.

2. Staff training to support Staff and Student Wellbeing in these emergency times.

The recent DES circular on re-opening schools in September 2020 makes particular reference to the wellbeing of students and staff during the current Covid-19 crisis (Circular 41/2020).

In this 2 hour online session, a Tara 365 Learning coach will lead a team discussion through the online challenges which you are now facing and explore possible respons­es to the current situation, which will ensure that your school remains focused on the wellbeing of your students and staff as we enter the next phase of schooling during this crisis. The range of digital supports available to your school through the ‘Microsoft 365’ and ‘Teams’ package will be discussed and will include areas such as organizing Year Group assemblies, capturing “student Voice”, data gathering on student engagement, Teams meetings, Making use of Microsoft Bookings to access tutors and councillors, Child Pro­tection issues online, communication and collaboration with parents online, and using Teams to support overall staff wellbeing.  (Google version of this session also available as required)

3.  Best practice in distance Teaching and Learning using Microsoft 365 or Google Classroom for all staff. A 12 Hour course (6 x 2-hour online workshops)

We provide an online 12-hour course for teachers over 6 sessions to highlight best practice for the school in delivering hybrid / distance learning. (Up to 50 staff with 2 trainers delivering the content).

This course will outline best practice methodologies for distance learning in content delivery, assessment and student welfare using Microsoft 365 applications. (OneDrive, Teams, Teams Meeting, Teams Assessment, SharePoint, OneNote, Forms, Stream, PowerPoint, Immersive Reader, Whiteboard and Sway as well as Google Classroom if required. At the end of this course all teachers will be convinced of the absolute need for a Class Team for every class they teach to work effectively in their classrooms or if distance teaching is required again.  Ideal course to deliver during September as the school opens-up in stages.

4. Blended Learning Self-Evaluation Toolkit (Lead Richard Galvin)

The Department of Education and Skills has recommended that schools: ‘use the School Self-Evaluation (SSE) process to help them address the challenges that will arise from the opening of schools. (Circular 41/2020).

Using MS TEAMS we can provide you with an experienced Tara staff member to attend any of your staff management meetings to coach and advise on the main issues you are discussing and help you bring an outside perspective to your discussions. 

Tara 365 Learning has developed a Blended Learning School Self-Evaluation Toolkit which will support schools when they review their own Blended Learning experience since March 2020, and which will help schools to develop a clear and sustainable pathway for teaching and learning in their school from September 2020 and beyond.

Tara 365 will provide your school with the services of an experienced education coach who will engage with senior and middle leadership teams and support the school in developing its own robust self-evaluation of how levels of teaching and learning were maintained during the first phase of remote, blended learning from March – June 2020.

The school will then be encouraged to reflect on how this experience could form the basis of their planning for teaching and learning in the new school year. A range of self-evaluation and planning tools will be explored and customized for each particular school context, including tools which will support surveys and data gathering, the choice of priority target areas and themes, and the benefits of focus group meetings. Our experienced coach will work directly with your SSE team and will share the experiences from international evaluation models and national best practice in this area to the self-evaluation process in your school.

This service includes 5 x one-hour coaching sessions, support in applying the DES School Self-Evaluation model and process to a review of the school’s Blended Learning experience, support in developing data gathering instruments, analysis, planning and reporting to stakeholders

5. An experienced Tara staff member to attend any of your staff management meetings

An experienced Tara staff member to attend any of your staff management meetings as coach and adviser on the main issues you are discussing to help you bring an outside perspective to your discussions.  (can be booked on an hourly basis using Microsoft “Bookings” here)

6. Workshop

A Workshop to promote increased Student engagement with fresh approaches to student centered online learning. (DEIS, Disadvantage, LT1 and LT2, Youth Reach, Minority groups etc.)