FESS has partnered with Kingstown College to offer a professional development day on Coaching in Education.
Coaching is about moving individuals and teams forward towards clarified and agreed goals by using proven tools and techniques to overcome challenges.

On this one-day introductory course participants will learn:
• What coaching is and how it differs from other interventions such as mentoring
• The benefits of coaching in education and how coaching can be used in Further Education and Training colleges and centres to develop individuals and teams, for example, learners in the classroom, individual staff members, staff teams
• Coaching dialogue and powerful questions used by coaches
• Coaching tools and techniques to unlock potential and capability and achieve better performance and outcomes

This professional development day will support goal 2 of the Further Education and Training Professional Development Strategy 2017-2019 in the following strategic priority areas: Working with and supporting FET learners; leadership and management development.

The target audience for this professional development day is teachers, tutors, trainers and co-ordinators working in FET classrooms and centres.

Facilitators: FESS/ Kingstown College

Please note: Pre-booking is essential. Please do not book onto this session unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows we can offer your booked place to another person.

Due to popular demand this workshop is being offered again by FESS. This hands-on workshop is designed for managers, leaders and coordinators who would like to explore the use of facilitation within their roles and experience the use of tools and techniques to help to facilitate groups and teams to have meaningful conversations/discussions, and work towards decision making /commitment.

This professional development day will support goal 2 of the Further Education and Training Professional Development Strategy 2017-2019 in the following strategic priority area: Leadership and management development.

The target audience for this workshop is FET staff working with groups or teams in coordination, management and leadership roles.

Facilitator: Miriam O' Donoghue, FESS

Please note: Pre booking is essential. Please do not book onto this event unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows we can offer your booked place to another person.

This workshop is for FET staff interested in positive communication. It is ideal for teachers, tutors, and leaders interested in improving relationships, and communicating in a positive way that promotes synergy, well-being and solutions.

During this full day workshop we will explore how to develop restorative skills and how to cultivate a restorative mindset using restorative values, intentions and language. 

We will offer an overview of RP, explore how it consciously builds relationships and outline an introduction to the restorative questions. 
We focus on EQ, on understanding, identifying and transforming difficult emotions such as anger and shame. 
We explore the transformative potential of restorative language and how it brings us from shame and disconnection to empathy and connection.

The target audience for this workshop is FET teachers and tutors and FET staff working in coordination, management and leadership roles.

Facilitator: Michelle Stowe, restorative practitioner, trainer and consultant.
Michelle has been championing, modelling, implementing, and co - ordinating Restorative Practices since 2010

Please note: Pre booking is essential. Please do not book onto this event unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows we can offer your booked place to another person

NALA is the National Adult Literacy Agency.
In Ireland, over 500,000 adults have unmet literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs. This means many will find it difficult to get information about the courses you offer or lack the confidence to apply for one. If they are on a course, the learners will have different strengths and needs in the particular language, literacy, numeracy and digital literacy used in the centre and course. This can also affect their confidence and motivation to complete a course.

There are lots of things you can do to remove these barriers and ensure your services are accessible to everyone. It requires taking a ‘whole-organisation’ literacy friendly approach. This means that you are aware of the barriers facing learners with unmet literacy needs and work towards removing as many of them as possible. You are probably doing this already in your work without even thinking about it, but if you want to learn more, the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) is providing a two-hour information session for any staff interested in this important area.

The information session has four parts that cover:
1. Literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs in Ireland: how we all have a role to play.
2. Using a ‘literacy friendly’ approach: Being aware and removing literacy related barriers facing learners will help make your centre more inclusive and accessible to all learners.
3. Integrating literacy: How to make your courses more effective for all learners, including those who have the subject-related knowledge and skills but experience difficulties with aspects of the course-related literacy, numeracy and digital literacy.
4. Plain English: Plain English is a way of writing and presenting information that helps someone understand it the first time they read or hear it. This part will provide you with useful plain English writing and design tips to help improve your written information.

What will I learn?
You will learn the practical steps you can take to ensure that your education and training programmes are:
• inclusive and do not exclude anyone because of the literacy and numeracy demands of the course
• offering support to adults with needs in the course related language, literacy, numeracy and digital literacy more effective for everyone on the course

The target audience for this event is: Administrators, centre managers, FET directors, tutors, vocational and subject specific teachers.

Facilitation: This event will be facilitated by the NALA Team .

Please note: Pre-booking is essential. Please do not book onto this session unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows, we can offer your booked place to another person.

This session is a follow-on from a previous session introducing the importance of soft skills/transversal skills for the future world of work and the key position that FET holds in the delivery of these skills.
This session will focus in on those identified priority soft skills and showcase some work already carried out across the education sector. This will form a starting point for the discussion of the requirements of building a soft skills competency framework within FET. Methods of teaching these skills will be addressed and case studies and scenarios will be shared as a basis for the discussion. This is very relevant to the development of programmes for FET.
Recognising the expertise of those in attendance, outcomes from these conversations will be integrated into future research and will feed into the development of the competency framework.

The target audience for this event is: FET staff including teachers, tutors, trainers, co-ordinators, managers.

Facilitation: This event will be facilitated by Marie Cleary. Marie is founder and director at ThirdSpace Consultants. She has extensive experience working with senior management and their teams to deliver strategic management interventions, facilitate change, develop leaders and build high performance teams. Before moving into Consulting, Marie was a teacher of Music and English at second level for 10 years. Her 20+ years Consulting career has spanned both public and private sector internationally. Her qualifications in Business, Education, Finance and Psychology, coupled with her previous roles in management of EU funding, gives her an expansive skillset to work in a variety of settings. She is currently completing Doctoral Studies on Future Skills. Marie is a coaching psychologist with extensive experience as an executive coach and has worked at a senior level to assist clients resolve challenging issues, build resilience and enhance leadership capability. Marie is passionate about intercultural education and is closely connected to the work of Leargas across the fields of Youth, Further Education and School Education.

Please note: Pre-booking is essential. Please do not book onto this event unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows we can offer your booked place to another person.

Executive functioning skills include our ability to plan, to manage our time, to be organised, to prioritise and to maintain motivation and persistence, amongst lots of other things. Do you have learners who just can't seem to get work completed, or in on time. Do they find it difficult to prioritise? Are they struggling with meeting deadlines in their daily lives or in your classroom? These skills do not always come easy to everyone. However, these skills are exceptionally challenging for many learners who are neurodivergent. Although this workshop is not only for those working with neurodivergent learners, it will examine the importance of scaffolding and teaching executive functioning skills to neurodivergent learners. In the true spirit of UDL, creating an environment supportive of neurodivergent learners with executive functioning challenges, will create an environment that is supportive of all.

Through a Universal Design for Learning lens, by the end of this hands-on and interactive workshop, participants will be able to:
• Define and discuss executive functioning.
• Identify and share ways that our colleges and centres do and can support executive functioning skills.
• Identify and share ways that we, as educators, do and can support executive functioning skills in the classroom.
• Create opportunities in teaching, learning and assessment activities where executive functioning skills can be further supported and enhanced.

Target audience: All FET educators (including but not exclusive to those working with neurodivergent learners).

Facilitation: This session will be facilitated by Carrie Archer. Carrie lectures on postgraduate programmes for FET specifically in the area of Diversity and Inclusion. She is a qualified special education and inclusive education teacher and has worked in the FET sector for the past 15 years. She is a qualified education leadership coach and specialises in the area of ADHD. She is a keen advocate for the use of UDL in education, from classroom to staffroom to boardroom and beyond to meet the needs of all.

Please note: Pre-booking is essential. Please do not book onto this session unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows, we can offer your booked place to another person.

This session will address the growing importance of Transversal Skills as a positive means to navigate the impact of an ever-accelerating world.
The session is aimed at Teachers and tutors of FET levels 5-6 and provides a resource to support teachers/tutors to aid their learners as they prepare for the world of work or tertiary education.

A transversal skills framework developed in conjunction with Leargas will be shared. This framework can be used as a guide to Transversal Skills for FET international work placements under Erasmus +. The framework can also act as a template for the exploration and identification of Transversal Skills by teachers and tutors.

The session will present the outcomes of research identifying the priority Transversal Skills for the future of work and present an overview of a toolkit developed as a support resource to those facilitating learner acquisition of Transversal Skills within FET.

The target audience for this session is: FET staff including management, teachers, tutors, trainers, programme coordinators, guidance counsellors, learning support staff and wellbeing officers.

Facilitation: This event will be facilitated by Dr Marie Cleary. Marie is founder and director at ThirdSpace Consultants. She has extensive experience working with senior management and their teams to deliver strategic management interventions, facilitate change, develop leaders and build high performance teams. Before moving into Consulting, Marie was a teacher of Music and English at second level for 10 years. Her 20+ years Consulting career has spanned both public and private sector internationally. Her qualifications in Business, Education, Finance and Psychology, coupled with her previous roles in management of EU funding, gives her an expansive skillset to work in a variety of settings. Marie is a coaching psychologist with extensive experience as an executive coach and has worked at a senior level to assist clients resolve challenging issues, build resilience and enhance leadership capability. Marie is passionate about intercultural education and is closely connected to the work of Leargas across the fields of Youth, Further Education and School Education.

Please note: Pre-booking is essential. Please do not book onto this session unless you are sure that you will attend / have approval to attend (if required). If an emergency arises, please inform us ASAP (cpdcancellations@fess.ie) as we operate a waiting list system and if time allows, we can offer your booked place to another person.