BSS holds training for middle school teachers

Islamabad
The Training Department of the Beaconhouse Northern Region, under the supervision of Training Manager North Ms Fouzia Rizwan, organised a mega event titled ‘Sharing Good Practices’ at the Margalla Campus, Islamabad, with an aim to facilitate middle school teachers.
It was the first-ever mega event of its kind where around 400 middle school teachers from all over the northern region of BSS gathered to benefit from and share good practices in teaching.
Addressing the audience on the occasion, BSS Executive Director North Nassir Kasuri emphasised on the need to ‘Collaborate, Contribute and Connect’ for better learning. He said “We should develop the culture of teachers interacting with each other even across the boundaries of the school.” In his speech, he thanked the middle school teachers because they deal with the most defining time of a young person.
Syed Talat Hussain, renowned anchor and teacher, graced the occasion as chief guest.
In his address, Syed Talat Hussain talked about the tyranny of compulsion. He said “We all feel trapped by what we ought to do but often great achievements come from these compulsions. For teachers, it is the students who represent hope and their motivation comes from them.”
Manager Training North Ms Fouzia Rizwan, while briefing the audience about the event, said, “In vain is the knowledge if you have not imparted it to others.” Reiterating the importance of sharing good practices, she said, “Sharing knowledge has helped man to evolve into an intelligent and productive specie that man is today.”
The event was also attended by Ms Ayesha Shabbir, Head SGO III, Ms Rahat Agha, Manager SGO III, Ms Ayesha Sohail, Head SGO II, and Ms Safia Qasim, Head SGO I.
‘Sharing Good Practices’ was a unique event where both training and breakout sessions were held. The ten training sessions catered to the needs of individual teachers. There were discussions on the contemporary teaching and subject integration as well as the use of ‘rubrics’ and ‘questioning techniques’ as effective tools of teaching and assessment. The subject-based training sessions included understanding prose and poetry for reflection of thoughts, creating love for Urdu prose and poetry and common errors in teaching of mathematics.
The entirely new and innovative session introduced the use of ‘Edmodo’ and ‘Kahoot’, the teaching applications available on the internet. ‘Edmodo’ can be used for online classroom discussions, whereas ‘Kahoot’ is a game-based classroom response system.
In the eight breakout sessions, the resource persons came up with burning issues in teaching. Ms Fouzia Rizwan, Training Manager North, talked about the support the middle school teachers require in their professional development. Ms Shazia Abbassi, Deputy Training Manager, addressed the issue of a passive link in holistic development of students. The purpose of the breakout sessions was to take recommendations from middle school teachers on these issues.
The event concluded with the presentation of mementos to the teachers and resource persons and a collective evaluation of the event.