“This was by far the best training session." Essential Collaboration with Birmingham City Council
I like to think my learning and development opportunities mirror the BBC, yes, ’m here to inform, educate and ENTERTAIN!
Over the last ten months I’ve been creating a brand-new course for Birmingham City Council’s Future Leader Programme. I christened the course: ‘Generating Positive Purpose - Essential Collaboration.’ I knew I was the final part of the programme and the sessions would commence in December. I had a good lead in to create something thought-provoking, fully interactive and based very much on contemporary research. Well, yesterday saw the course being launched via the wonders of Zoom. I absolutely loved delivering the personalised course which looked at how to improve the collaborative processes within local authorities.
The most rewarding thing was hearing how people appreciated the amount of work I’d put into producing the training. I created five films (big thanks to my lovely actors, (Charlotte, Hannah, Heather, Gwyn, Simon) just for the course, all of which had comedic elements. The day flew by with gails of laughter and much debate and discussion. As a teacher, it’s important that I create a safe, inclusive environment where people can speak honestly and openly about their working practices and not worry their words will be used against them.
Learner comments have knocked my socks off! Here is a small sample of the 100% positive feedback:
“The course had the right balance in terms of being inclusive from a participation and material sharing balance. It was one of, if not the best externally provided future leader programme course, perhaps due to its contents being developed specifically for a local authority. This resulted in the information provided being more relevant and thought provocative.
The inclusive presentation style along with the varied tasks resulted in high and continued interest throughout the course’s duration.
The “edutainment” themed videos were excellent and reminded me of similar videos done by John Cleese which used entertainment as a vehicle for educating people.
There’s no doubt that a lot of thought went into creating this course.
Furthermore, due to the effective way in which Steven delivered the course along with the supporting info provided I now have a better understanding of how to go about working collaboratively in a more effective way. Many thanks and much appreciated.”
Fitzroy
“This was by far the best training session within the Future Leaders Programme. The presenter was engaging and the session interactive. The day flew by. Thanks Steven thoroughly enjoyed this engaging and informative session.”
Louise
“This was the best session so far. It was very interactive, including group working, videos, slides and discussions. Some of the other sessions have been very dry, but this was interesting and that’s down to Steven who had obviously done a lot of preparation for it. It has been an enjoyable day.”
Jan
“Thanks for a brilliant day. The course was really enjoyable. The best session on the Future Leaders Programme by far. Steven was a great leader and made the subject matter interesting, informative and Fun. It was really interactive and the day flew by. Steven listened to everyone and included everyone.”
Sally
“Today’s session was very enjoyable. I particularly liked the interaction with my colleagues. Steven is very approachable and delivered the workshop content is a very clear and simple way. I have found myself linking most of the content to other session’s topics such as “recognising bias” and wanting to use the GROW process when dealing with DESC. Thanks, Monia.”
Monia