Art Cluster

This will be the first meeting of an EKST Art Cluster. All colleagues teaching art, photography, ceramics and textiles are welcome to attend. This first cluster will be held at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate hosted by Nicola Hodge. Please RSVP via the link BOOK at the bottom of this page

What is an EKST Cluster Group?

These are meetings of teachers within a subject area to share good practice and resources locally. There is no prescribed way of running a cluster group – their whole strength is the fact that they are run by and for their members. So far, cluster groups have been developing organically with meetings shifting from ice-breaking to deeper collaboration.

HoDs are encouraged to bring along other members of the department as a great way to help newer practitioners learn from others and build networks.

What’s worked well in other clusters?
• Building a local network of colleagues
• Learning from each other, especially over new exams, marking etc
• Sharing resources, ideas, links and news of local events
• Inviting each other to events at each other’s schools
• Creating events for students (e.g. the Dragon’s Den event grew out of the Business Studies cluster group)
• Show & Tell / Mini-TeachMeet as part of meetings

As the groups develop, they can choose to work together in whatever ways are helpful to their members, being mindful and respectful of the differences between schools (boarding/day, different exam boards, term times. etc). Here are some areas that have been explored already:
• Teacher swaps
• Sharing costs for group CPD
• Organising teacher or student conferences
• Offering joint revision sessions for students
• Teaming up for increased buying power
• Looking around each other’s departments
• Cross-moderation