M1: 9 Apr 2018 - Worcester Cathedral

What an ideal place to hold this ART Day Course - Worcester Teaching Centre located in beautiful Worcester Cathedral with plenty of dumbbells to train on!

The other good thing about the venue was that we enjoyed the choice of lunches available at the Cathedral Cafe and we got plenty of exercise to work off the calories as we returned to the Teaching Centre for the afternoon session!

Having started bell ringing fairly recently I thought this course would be way beyond my experience and I would feel out of my depth but to my delight it was the perfect course to consolidate the skills that I have already gained from some excellent teachers.

The day was divided into a mixture of theory and practical sessions. The theory was thoughtfully addressed and organised so that there were good presentations and descriptions which made key points very clear and understandable. Practical demonstrations were followed by work in pairs to learn how to teach a specific skill. Bell handling is a ‘big elephant’ of a subject and Graham took us through the logical steps breaking it down into useful manageable chunks which we then practised on our partners and vice versa. Graham is a skilled and experienced Tutor with exceptional competency in bell handling. He made skills look simple and straightforward and then some of us discovered they weren’t as simple as they looked when we tried to teach them to our partners. Good clear simple instructions were essential.

A very good selection of resources (books and DVD’s) were available and other support materials were identified that we could obtain from ART as necessary.

The ultimate test of a successful course is whether one goes away feeling more confident, motivated and ambitious than when one started. On that basis this was a very successful course!

Sue de Souza