A busy 6 months for ART
ART volunteers have been busy this year and we're seeing the results of this with record numbers of day courses, accreditations, new ringer registrations, and Learning the Ropes certificates.
Day Courses
During the past 6 months, 32 day day courses have been run and including courses that are on the forward calendar, ART is on target to run at least 51 day courses this year, with more still coming in. This compares with 39 courses run during the whole of 2017, itself a busy year. The courses are also proving to be very popular with more delegates attending each course than in previous years and day courses having to be closed months in advance because they are already full. A big thank you to the ART Tutors and Course Organisers who make such courses possible.
Teacher Accreditations
The number of teachers accrediting (via an assessed lesson) has also reached record levels with 97 teachers accrediting during the first half of 2018. It's difficult to give exact percentages as teachers can take up to 2 years (and in some cases longer) to accredit, however we are seeing between 20 to 25 % of M1 (bell handling) delegates and 25 to 30% of M2 (teaching beyond rounds) delegates accrediting. Huge credit must be given to these teachers, their mentors and to our volunteer Assessors for making this happen.
Ringer development
It is good to see that after attending a day course an increasing number of teachers are registering their ringers onto the Learning the Ropes progressive learning scheme and issuing them with certificates. This year, 645 new ringers have been registered onto the scheme, a 40% increase on last year, and over 500 LtR certificates have been issued.
The proportion of these ringers being awarded higher level certificates (Levels 4 and 5) is still lower than we would like to see. We know that ringers are progressing but certificates are not being requested. This is something we'd like to understand and work on later in the year.
And what do people say?
"I think that the day was excellent. Although over the years I have taught many to ring bells I now look at teaching in a different light and have picked up a number of good points. The benefit of us all teaching in the same way can only be good for bell ringing."
"What is so encouraging is that the vast majority of those who completed
Module 1 in Ipswich are either already lined up with pupils to teach, or
have firm plans to recruit in the near future. I’ve taught many people
in the past but ART shifts the focus from just a few teachers taking on
lots of commitment, to many teachers each doing their bit and,
crucially, with a consistent approach and with support and encouragement
from others."
"Overall it was a very interesting day. Very often we teach handling
one-to-one without another teacher present, so sharing our experience
was very useful. We all need to be the best teachers we possibly can;
with the current shortage of ringers, every new ringer needs to develop a
good handling style, so that they can progress in their ringing as far
as possible. Not every new ringer will enjoy ringing enough to carry on
with it, but we don’t want to lose enthusiastic ringers because they’ve
been trying to Plain Hunt the treble for a year and poor bell handling
is preventing them being able to do it."
Lesley Belcher