On Thursday afternoon I will host the first meeting of the OUTER WEST VISUAL ART TEACHERS NETWORK! It is being held in the main art room so I have some serious tidying up to do between now and then!!!
I was joint President of a local network years ago but it folded about a year after I left to have my first child, who is now nearly 17! I can’t believe there hasn’t been an art teachers network around here for that long as Visual Art teachers really need their networks as they are often isolated within Primary Schools and need each other to bounce ideas around and ask for help with curriculum, assessment, budgets, etc.
There is a network running out of Footscray I believe, and a long established one in Geelong, but I think it’s important that you don’t have to travel far to get to a Network meeting, so that is why I thought it was time to get one going in the outer west again. The old network was called the Werribee Art teachers network but I didn’t want the name to necessarily put anyone off from coming, by thinking that they absolutely had to come from Werribee to be there. So I will suggest it be called the Outer West Network and see what the participants think.
So hopefully, with about 15 people RSVPing to say they will be here, we will have enough impetus to get started. I am really looking forward to the meeting getting to know other art teachers in this area. Wish me luck!!!
Shelley