Dear Members,
It seems like a lifetime ago, given everything that has happened since, that schools were ‘closed’ on 20th March – and I would once again like to personally thank each and every one of our members for all you have done to support your trainees during these challenging times.
We had originally planned to communicate the results of our member survey, which many of you completed earlier this academic year, around this period and before the Easter holidays – but of course, the world turned upside down for us all and our focus, understandably, has moved to supporting you through Covid-19. This support is now continuing with our guidance on whether trainee teachers could and should return to schools during the summer term, in the event that some primary schools do start to receive more pupils from 1st June or later.
Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who completed our member survey – the second one we have run – which saw 129 individuals (and over 100 providers) respond to around 20 questions. I was especially pleased with the following:
- 99% of you strongly agree or agree that NASBTT “supports school-led training provision and represents their interests in the development and implementation of national policy”, in line with our mission
- 99% of you believe that it is very important or important to be a NASBTT member
- 99% of you feel engaged with NASBTT
- 98% of you would recommend membership of NASBTT to a colleague or peer
- 96% of you highly value or value NASBTT membership
- 94% of you are very satisfied or satisfied with your membership of NASBTT
- 93% of you believe it is important to be engaged with other NASBTT members
- 91% of you say that NASBTT membership has improved your ability to do your job
However, whilst these headline figures are recognition of our objective to provide the best possible value to our members, we are always striving for improvement and can only do this by understanding what is working for you and what we need to do differently. We have now analysed the results of the survey, which can be viewed here, and below I have developed a summary of how we are responding, or are planning to respond, to the emerging themes.
Improving online resources and communication
Based on your feedback, we have:
- Launched a new website
- Widened our website resources, updated toolkits and developed NASBTT Learn and the Teacher Educator and Mentoring Zone
- Created an online forum for peer-to-peer networking, sharing practical advice and guidance from other NASBTT members via a Closed Facebook Group (as of May 2020 we have 149 members)
- Continued to publish regular member blogs in our ‘Member Voice’ section (these are open to all members, and individual roles)
- Modified our weekly newsletter
Overcoming barriers to attendance at events
Based on your feedback, we have:
- Increased our range of locations (from London only) to also include Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Taunton
- Upped our frequency of member workshops, delivered at multiple locations, thus keeping costs down and limiting time out of the office
- Delivered a series of online member workshops in response to Covid-19 (and this will be a significant NASBTT offering going forward)
Responding to coverage of specific topics
Based on your feedback, we have:
- Developed and launched a new Occupational Health/Fitness to Teach offering
- Held a number of new workshops e.g. Fundamental Proficiencies, Curriculum Design and Subject Knowledge & Metacognition and Cognitive Load, and Ofsted and the new ITE Inspection Framework
- Delivered marketing and mental health-specific workshops for Administrators
We will continue to respond to your organisation’s requirements – and represent your voice to government, in the media and at sector conferences. However, in the meantime, we will further explore the individual comments that were fed back through the survey, update you on progress in six months’ time, and repeat this survey again in Autumn 2021. Thank you again for your input, and valuable contribution to NASBTT.
Emma Hollis