On Friday 20th November the annual Windsor Academy Conference took place. This year’s conference was all about unlocking potential and how this can be used within the organisation. The conference was busy, with over 400 teaching and support staff attending.
Unlocking potential – Baroness Sue Campbell CBE
The day started off with a keynote by Baroness Sue Campbell CBE, in this session she shared her insights into what took Team GB from 10th in the medal table in 2008 to 3rd in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics games. We have learned that the focus wasn’t on winning medals but upon the factors that allowed athletes to succeed. Sue taught the audience to ‘’dream big and believe that you can’’ and trying to better yourself every day even if it is a millisecond in comparison to yesterday. This session was very inspiring and can be applied in everyone’s day to day jobs whether you are a cleaner or whether you’re a CEO of a big company.
“What does leadership mean to you?” Baroness Sue Campbell
In this session, Andy Wilkinson explored the use of social media, areas of opportunity and tips for making it work for you from a personal and professional perspective. He shared anecdotes, statistics and provided an understanding of the impact and consequences of using social media. This session got the staff thinking about how much of a presence they should have online and how you can optimise your Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest profiles to get the most out of them. The session also included a workshop to look at social media/marketing planning and how different departments can get involved in this.
Andy starting the session with a selfie.
After lunch it was time to recognise staff from the various academies within the WAT group that demonstrated leadership, professional development and enrichment. All winners were well deserved.
Trusting the ensemble: how to get the best out of the team – Charles Hazlewood, Conductor
The final keynote was by Charles Hazlewood, conductor. The key theme was: trust. Trusting oneself, delivering a strong and clear framework whilst creating a trusting environment in which each person is enabled to shine, whilst ‘binding’ the collective to achieve the best possible performance. The final key note ended with a vocal performance by all staff.
“Trusting the ensemble: how to get the best out of the team?” Conductor Charles Hazlewood
