Throwing down the gauntlet: the new CollectivED Advisory Board

Recently we have updated our name, and we are now CollectivED: The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching & Professional Learning. The significance of this was expressed during discussions at our first Advisory Board (AB) in July 2019 which challenged us to articulate what our core objectives were – it felt like a moment when they literally threw down the gauntlet.

We reflected on this question and believe that we can summarise our purpose as follows: to generate collaborative conversations which create powerful professional learning. These conversations happen during our CollectivEd events, during our Carnegie School of Education mentor training, during our new PGCert, during our research student supervision, and during our school-based enquiry groups. They also happen within and through our working papers, with frequent feedback that they are being used as the basis of professional and scholarly discussion in schools and universities. They happen through engagement on our twitter feed and with our Carnegie School of Education blogpost, and they happen through our commitment to supporting external CPD, such as with Teaching Schools and during mentoring and coaching conferences. These conversations happen at education research community gatherings in the UK and internationally and through study visits.

Many of these conversations become visible through tweets and its always fascinating to read responses to our work. What is less visible, but actually more important, is how these conversations then filter out into staffrooms, leadership discussions and planning for professional development, mentoring and coaching practice and into the opportunities for individuals to think and act in new ways. We can never take full credit for changing practice, messages from many organisations and individuals weave together into individual decision-making and collective thinking; thankfully we are not alone in advocating for enhanced opportunities of professional collaboration and dialogue.

In creating the Advisory Board we welcome support and challenge. In our first meeting the board members suggested that we create a new graphical representation of our work which is shown below. In another version of this diagram the role of the board is also articulated as one of the means by which we continue to ensure that we connect our values and purpose and our research, practice and engagement. This describes their role as follows.

• Bringing expertise from the education sector and beyond and linking CollectivED to a range of stakeholders and partners
• Offering challenge and insight to the director and core team of CollectivED to support strategic decision-making
• Engaging with the wider CollectivED network and events
• Advocating for the work of CollectivED and professional learning in education

The Advisory Board members have already made an impact and we look forward to working with them in future. We are grateful for their individual commitment to our work and to the organisations for whom some of them work who have supported their participation on the board. Our next meeting is on the 7^th November.

Our current CollectivED Advisory Board members are:

• Kelly Ashley (Kelly Ashley Consultancy)
• Mhairi Beaton (Leeds Beckett University)
• Amanda Bennet (Greetland Academy, representing the Teaching Schools Council)
• Rachel Bostwick (Leeds Beckett University)
• Katy Chedzy (Chartered College of Teaching)
• Liz Dawson (Success Coaching Ltd)
• Peter Hall-Jones (The Spiral Partnership Ltd)
• Charlotte Harling (SISRA)
• Rose Hegan (Growth Coaching International)
• Bethan Hindley (Teacher Development Trust)
• Andrew Mears (Thinking Leadership)
• Phil Mellen (Leeds City Council)
• Jackie Moses (UCET, the University Council for Teacher Education)
• Lou Mycroft (nomadic educator)
• James Pope (InspireEDucate)
• Charmaine Roche (Leadership for Wellbeing)
• Jonny Uttley (TEAL Multi Academy Trust)
• Stefanie Wilkinson (Barnsley College)