Pre-School Convention 2015!

At the beginning of each year, there is an opening in-service for seminary and institute, called a pre-school convention. Planning for the training began several months ago when the curriculum was ordered and wards and branches began to assess their need for new teachers and to gather students that should be registering for the year. Students ages 14 to 18 or until they graduate register for seminary and those ages 18 to 30 register for institute. We had our pre-school convention this past Saturday and feel it was a good success. All but a few of our 28 teachers came plus most of bishops and branch presidents. During the first hour we served lunch and distributed materials and then the training itself lasted for two hours. We are really grateful that it went so well and also that we are done!!!

Classroom setup. A slide show was going with the pictures we had taken of all of the classes during last years visits. We provided pizza and cold drinks in another room before the meeting, but I forgot to take pictures of teachers enjoying lunch.

 We separated the teachers manuals, student manuals and other materials by teacher so that they could be picked up easily and everyone would get the amount they needed.

We had a good turn out. There were 36 present, which included almost all of our teachers (a few called to be excused) plus priesthood representation from all but two of our units.

President deKock, the stake president, opened the meeting with encouragement and counsel for the teachers. The stake has set a goal that every student who registers will complete successfully, so we will be busy this year trying to make sure that goal is met.

Elder Davie giving explanation and instruction.

We referred to this display during the meeting so that participants would understand that the new changes for the year and even the administrative tasks are all designed to help us better accomplish the big purpose.

My turn. Each inservice I'm the one to give the information on the administrative things--attendance reporting, pacing guides, curriculum. Since there are new requirements this year, including two assessments for students, people had a lot of questions.

 Some of our participants. We have a number of new teachers so we will be working with them to orient and support them during the year. We visit all of the classes, but will visit classes of the new teachers more often. Classes are bigger this year which is good and teachers seem really committed to teaching in a way that will help students complete successfully.