Patrick McGrath
Patrick's Workshops
One of these three sessions will be repeated on both days, depending on interest.
Visual Maths for Primary Classrooms
Visuals are key to exploring maths. In this workshop, we’ll explore how to enhance maths teaching across the primary curriculum on digital devices by using a variety of visual tools including manipulatives, shapes, and representations to help illustrate key maths concepts and build ‘connectedness’ to the world. We’ll see how to deepen pupils’ understanding of mathematical operations and reduce the challenges of the sometimes abstract nature of maths. Developing a range of practical and effective strategies applicable across a broad range of topics you’ll experience how with just a web browser and some core edtech tools, you can build a complete maths workflow for primary - easily creating resources, then sharing, completing and assessing with ease. From number lines, numbers and shapes through graphs to angles and much more, we’ll help pupils find more than the right answer - you’ll build an understanding of where they come from!
UDL: Designing and Embedding Inclusive Learning
In our world of digital learning, from resources to support tools, how inclusive are we in reality? Are we striving always to remove barriers to learning? In this workshop we’ll challenge your thoughts and help you shape your practice on digital inclusion. We’ll consider student choice, accessibility, adaptability and robustness through a range of technology and actionable strategy through a range of impactful technology tools, including AI. Together we will work through a comprehensive, practical framework to lay a firm foundation and then create the essential building blocks for everyone across your institution to be digitally inclusive across every subject. Using the core principles of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and building on existing best practices, we’ll look in detail at resources, content, tools and spaces and build a set of guides that will allow us to design digital learning experiences that reach everyone. The goal? To ensure digital inclusion is at the heart of learning and our default practice!
The 7 Habits of Highly Inclusive Practice
‘Big wins’ can often entail huge changes. With the pressures on workload, that journey can sometimes look daunting. That’s where the ‘marginal gains’ strategy comes in. In this session we’ll explore how we can identify small everyday changes that add up to huge wins over time and lead to a more inclusive classroom.
We’ll use the ‘power of seven’ and discuss seven steps we can take to develop ‘habits’ in teaching and learning that can lead to rapid development and embedding of inclusive practice. These seven steps envelope every aspect of teaching & learning and use the lens of technology to empower staff to develop thinking that encourages and develops a natural, default approach to inclusion.
These seven steps are practical, easily adopted and built as an effective path for every educator and the entire school to follow, with technology at their core.
Inclusive practice is not just about individual needs - it’s a recognition of all of our differences and an interconnectedness of vision and practice. This workshop is the means to provide the ‘how’ as we explore what effective inclusive practice should and can be, through simple, practical, actionable steps that make immediate impact to all.