Why teachers need time outside their own school

Sometimes the best idea you take back to school comes from a conversation you weren't expecting to have.

The summer holidays are over, and classrooms across the country are filling up again. New timetables, new faces, new priorities and, hopefully, a little of that start-of-year energy that comes from having had some time away.

Six weeks outside the classroom gives you something that's difficult to find during term time; breathing space. Time away from the day-to-day can help you return with a clearer head, a different perspective and renewed enthusiasm for the year ahead.

Of course, we're not suggesting a day of CPD at BRILLIANT is going to feel quite the same as six weeks of summer, but there is something to be said for getting out of your usual environment every now and again.

Stepping outside your own school, meeting different people and hearing how others are approaching the same challenges can give you a fresh burst of ideas at a point in the year when that breathing space is usually becoming harder to find.

CPD doesn't always have to look like CPD

Professional development can sometimes feel very structured, a training session, a presentation, a set of objectives and something to implement afterwards, but some of the most useful learning between educators happens in much less formal ways.

It happens when you hear how another school has approached a problem you've been wrestling with. When somebody mentions a tool, project or idea you've never come across before, or when a conversation over coffee makes you question something you've always done in the same way, it can have a much bigger impact.

Those moments can be difficult to find within the normal school day because, understandably, everyone is focused on the priorities directly in front of them. Getting outside your own setting at events like ours creates space for them.

See what's happening beyond your own classroom

Education is changing quickly. Artificial intelligence, SEND and inclusion, EdTech, creativity, STEAM, employer engagement and the skills young people will need for their future careers are all creating new questions for schools.

No individual teacher, department or school can have all the answers. What one school is only beginning to explore may already be working brilliantly somewhere else. Another educator may have tried something that didn't work and can save you from doing the same. Someone from industry might completely change the way you think about preparing students for employment.

That wider perspective matters and reminds us that schools aren't tackling these challenges alone. There is an enormous community of people testing new approaches, sharing what works and trying to achieve the same thing, which is better outcomes for young people.

The conversations you didn't plan for

There's another reason getting educators together matters, and it isn't always found on the agenda.

It's the conversation with the teacher sitting next to you before a session begins, the introduction to somebody working on a challenge remarkably similar to yours, the discussion that starts with one topic and ends somewhere completely unexpected.

You might arrive looking for ideas about AI and leave thinking differently about inclusion; you might attend a session on STEAM and find yourself talking to an employer about careers provision; you might simply discover that another school has found a much better way of doing something you've been struggling with.

Sometimes the most useful thing you take back to school wasn't the thing you came looking for, which is exactly what happened when Emma Darcy attended last year.

Make BRILLIANT part of your CPD

This collaboration is a huge part of what BRILLIANT is about.

We're bringing educators together with industry, innovators, researchers and people working across education to share what they're learning, challenge existing thinking and explore what could come next.

There will be plenty to learn from the sessions themselves, with conversations covering some of the biggest issues facing education today, but we're just as interested in what happens between them. The questions, introductions, exchanged experiences and conversations in the aisles that turn into ideas you can actually take back and use.

As the new school year gets underway and calendars quickly begin to fill up again, it's worth protecting some time to get outside your own school.

Not because a day away will solve every challenge or magically recreate that post-summer feeling, but because sometimes a change of environment, a different conversation and a new perspective are exactly what's needed to put a bit of fresh energy back into the year.

And you never know which conversation might make the biggest difference.

Join us at BRILLIANT from 8.30am on 10th November at Liverpool Exhibition Campus.