2012: A busy year for ITTS

What a year! I don’t think any one quite expected that things would take off so fast.

In 2010 a total of 8 Integrated Teacher Training Scheme (ITTS) courses were held, in 2011 the number rose to 11, in 2012 the requests for new courses just kept coming in and kept coming in – a total of 35 were run in the year. The ITTS needed to respond quickly. The work involved running the courses and collecting the data was getting too much for one voluntary helper. Jobs were disseminated all over the country with volunteers willing to help out for a while.

Now there were some teachers starting to gain accreditation, the Ringing Foundation encouraged the establishment of the Association of Ringing Teachers or A.R.T. A Management Committee held an inaugural meeting at Magdalen College School, in Oxford, on 4 March. A Constitution was agreed, officers appointed and discussions on the way forward began in earnest.

We were to apply to the Ringing Foundation – which was already sponsoring the scheme – for a grant to continue to run the courses and to employ a part-time administrative assistant. Work started on the drawing up of the grant application. Meanwhile the course needed more tutors. Six British ITTS Course Tutors held courses for the first time in 2012 and two ITTS Course Tutors for the USA joined the scheme.

A logo for ART was designed, a website created, a newsletter established, a new course for ART members was set up on the online educational Moodle site associated with the course and a date for an AGM was set for 9 March 2013. A code of practice, a safeguarding policy, public liability insurance for those over eighteen years old, and a universal (transferable) CRB check system were all established for ART members. Advice for those having difficulty recruiting was put onto the Moodle site. An independent group of Educational Advisors under the Chairmanship of Michael de C Henshaw was established and will report to the Ringing Foundation concerning three areas

  • to what extent the participants follow the scheme
  • the validity of the scheme
  • evaluation of outcomes

Following the conference “Change Ringing for the Future” held in Wellesbourne in November of 2011 the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers fulfilled some of the requirements which emerged from it, endorsing the scheme at their meeting in Chester in May 2012. The CCCBR proposed the “adoption of the Integrated Teacher Training Scheme (ITTS) programme as the recommended scheme for training new instructors, for which adequate funding will be sought and manpower provided” and stated their intention to “encourage membership of the Association of Ringing Teachers”.

This news was indeed most welcome and gladly received.

In July 2012 the ART Management Committee took a decision to open the use of the five Level progressive learning scheme for new ringers – ‘Learning the Ropes‘- to all delegates (it had previously been introduced with Module 2 of ITTS). This proved very popular and by the end of November over 500 Ringers’ Personal Progress Logbooks had been issued and one hundred and fourteen new ringers had been certificated through the scheme.

With the Ringing Foundation Grant having been approved and papers signed on the 23 October work could get going on the employment of a part time administrator. On the 13 November interviews were held and Angela Roskelly was appointed to the post. She started work at the beginning of December. All the work previously performed by the various people helping out could then be brought back under one roof. Data are collected on things such as Membership of ART, numbers of new ringers registered to the Moodle site, those delegates who have passed their online theory tests (part of the accreditation procedure for membership of ART), the numbers of new ringers who have been awarded certificates on the Learning the Ropes scheme, number of courses held and number of courses planned are all reported monthly to the Ringing Foundation. Accuracy is much more likely when all the data are stored in one location.

ART is making a DVD on teaching bell handling using the evidence based methods employed by the ITTS which will have its premiere at the AGM in Kineton on the 9 March 2013.