This July, 22 staff and peer mentors travelled to our training centre in Elmina for our second bi-annual residential staff training Academy.

Take a look inside through this new short film:

The focus of the Academy was open key areas of programmes development. As ever, many of our core values were on show with our unique playful approach combined with a culture of care, teamwork and focus on sustainable impact ensuring a purposeful and engaging use of time for all.

After a few sessions exploring the wider organisational picture and strategy, learner strand coordinators engaged in themes relating to differentiation strategies (considering the ‘invisible backpack’ our learners and Catlaysts might have),  effective feedback (analysing feedback given across the group), our learner profile, digital strategies and effective relationship building skills.

In contrast, the operations and regional coordinator team explored effective grant management, data analysis, and building a strategy for full engagement in EduSpots’ app.

The fact that 70% of this group come from Spot community backgrounds, ensured that our approach and decision-making was always closely informed by direct Catalyst experience.

Reflecting on some of the sessions, and the lessons drawn, staff commented:

• “The session on effective feedback was very profound. I believe this session will help me improve on how I give feedback going forward. I would be more empathetic and strategic to ensure that the feedback is praising effort and encouraging Spots to do more, rather than creating a feeling of disappointment about what went wrong.”
• “The Session on communication skills, photo taking, and ethical considerations has given me an insight to improve my ability to document and share the impact of EduSpots’ work effectively.”
• “The keeping spot safe session is always my highlight. I love the fact that EduSpots is putting in much effort to make the spots a very safe place for library users. My leadership role as well has been unlocked and I’m going to help achieve the aim of keeping spot safe to make a better learning space.”
• “The session that had the most impact upon me is the differentiated learning session. Differentiated learning is something that was not at the fore front of my mind when designing content and as a strand coordinator who assist students with varied needs I think its probably one of the best strategies to employ in ensuring each group of students are getting the most out of content I create.”
• “The session that made a particular impact was the strategy session with managers. It enabled me to learn about the deliverables of other managers and how that feeds into mine and vice versa. The session also brought to light common tools used by managers and ways to improve upon information flowing from these tools as well as how to maximise the usage of the information.”

On the afternoon of the second day, staff engaged in team-building games on the beach, including a highly competitive volleyball night, with the training culminating in an appreciation and celebration night, as we reflected on our journey in 2024 so far, and celebrated the new funding from the mc2h foundation.

There was a very positive culture of mutual respect with 94% of the team agreeing or strongly agreeing (67%)  that they felt able to share their ideas and opinions during group discussions, with 100% agreeing that they felt a valued member of the EduSpots team and 96% agreeing that the Academy was an effective use of their time.

Looking forward, we will incorporate more skills training into the Academy in small groups, across IT, design work, photography and finance with further time given to exploration of staff well-being.

A huge thank you to everyone in the team who made this event possible, whether organising transport, finance, food and accommodation, or leading highly thought provoking sessions. We also appreciate the attendance of all staff and peer mentors, especially to those who made exceptionally long journeys to participate.