Lee Davies

After expressing my intent I received an email letting me know it had been received and that the professional formation webfolio template was now available within REfLECT.  Indeed it was – just had to go to ‘My Pages’ on the IfL website, login and go to the REfLECT tab.  Once in REfLECT I found the professional formation webfolio template on the ‘tools’ button.

Note: I still need to download the ‘declaration of suitability’ form, complete it and send it to IfL.  At the moment this cannot be done within REfLECT as it needs a signature to confirm that the information is correct.  Must remember to do this soon, otherwise it will delay the process.

It’s also a good time to be thinking about who will be supporting the application.  Knowing the supporter’s membership number is useful, as this makes it really easy to look up in REfLECT.  The supporter doesn’t get notification at this stage, mainly because the webfolio is still open for completion and it may be that circumstances change, so well worth dropping the person an email to let them know you have started the process and nominated them.

First big task is stage 3 of the webfolio template.  Need evidence here of a teaching qualification, higher education qualification (if appropriate) and also evidence for the level 2 numeracy and literacy requirements – you need to scroll down to see these elements.  Just a matter of scanning my Cert Ed certificate, MA (Education) certificate and also my O Level Maths and English certificates.  Phew – I have all of those so scanned them and uploaded them – very easy.

If I didn’t have evidence for numeracy or literacy, the system offers me the opportunity to provide a narrative account of how I meet the standards (guidance on IfL website).  This is probably best done as a word document which is then uploaded to the webfolio in much the same way as attaching a certificate.  A thought came to me when thinking about this.  Given the many Word file formats now, I think I will convert all documents to a PDF file format using one of the many free online conversion tools (PrimoPDF is good), as this will make it a lot easier for the reviewer and will also stop the accidental changes that can happen when working with live Word documents.

Don’t forget stage 3 is the time to say if you teach skills for life – you will need to choose the ‘I don’t teach skills for life’ option here, unless you have evidence that you meet the subject qualification requirements for skills for life.

That’s the first three stages completed – took about 20 minutes or so, including scanning the certificates.  Now on to stage 4 – my ‘teaching biography’.  Think this will be a little more difficult, I’ll post a link to it here when I’ve finished it.

Well, I’ve only gone and done it!

A few days ago I spent the day with some brilliant teachers at Guernsey College looking at ‘professional formation’ and how to use REfLECT to build an eportfolio to support the application for Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills status (QTLS).  I was so inspired by their enthusiasm for demonstrating how they use the knowledge and skills developed in teacher training in their practice that I immediately expressed my intent to start professional formation.  So now the clock is ticking.

To be fair, it is something I have been meaning to do for some time.  When we introduced IfL’s personal learning space and eportfolio, REfLECT, I used the webfolio tools to tell the story of my professional formation.  The resulting web portfolio was very much the template for the eventual scaffolding that was created in REfLECT to support professional formation – so I am, in a small way, responsible for the engineering of the process.  This means I have all of the evidence, well – much of it, and now need to take the time to order it and make sure I cover all of the criteria.

In discussing this with colleagues, they thought it would be a good idea for me to blog about my experiences.  I hope that the resulting blog can become a resource for others undertaking professional formation for either QTLS or ATLS status.  So it is now a case of ‘watch this space’ as I build my eportfolio and share the experience with you.

Wish me luck!!