Saltaire ... fresh air!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending the day in Saltaire and buying a Hockney .. OK, it was a poster! ;-) Until now, I hadn't had the opportunity of spending any time in this beautiful place and had only rushed through the little train station en route to Leeds or Keighley! But this is an amazing village, built up by Sir Titus Salt in the nineteenth century to provide housing for workers in his woollen mills.

I bought my Hockney [!] in Salt's Mill, converted to an art gallery and shops [with a focus on the renowned Bradford-born artist] in the 1980s, by Jonathan Silver.

But my recent for visiting Saltaire was even more exciting perhaps .. and that was to see the wonderful learning environment that the new Titus Salt School provides for its students, the staff and the local community. I was given a tour of the school which must sit somewhere at the forefront of design for learning and teaching and one which reflects exciting new beginnings in the village and one which continues its focus on community need. Take a look here ...

Three teachers from Titus Salt last year braved school moves and curriculum changes and some wonderful resources for the Teachnet UK programme. Take a look ...

Kevin Simpson, Statistics Modules 1 and 2
Hayley Thompson, Electricity
Martha Featherstone, The Art of Rhetoric

Thank you to the staff and students of Titus Salt for making me feel so welcome and for providing me with an opportunity to visit beautiful Saltaire.

A little about me

I have worked for the SSAT for the past ten years, mostly on programmes that focus on professional development activities, latterly on designing and maintaining support for complementary online activities. I manage the ICT Register and would encourage you all to take a look at what our schools offer in terms of advice and guidance with ICT, and to join us if your school is also at the cutting edge of technology!

I also manage Teachnet UK which offers classroom teachers around the world, freely downloadable resources covering hours of classroom activity. Finally, you might want to take a look at an international website-building competition for students - Thinkquest - which encourages students between 9 and 19 to work in teams, locally, nationally and internationally to create websites for other students and their teachers around the world ... take a peep at the largely undiscovered gem that the ThinkQuest Library provides!

I also work for the National College of School Leadership as facilitator on its OFAT [Online Facilitation and Tutoring] programme!