On Saturday 7th January, Winter Ringing School sessions started again for the New Year. At Kirtlington we celebrated another graduate, Rachel Mackenzie.
Rachel reflected : “Winter Ringing School has been a great boost to my skill and confidence. It has been great to visit new towers, try new bells and get the benefit of excellent 1:1 tuition in a really friendly and supportive atmosphere – I would definitely recommend it to all new ringers. Thank you to all who have generously donated their time to help develop our skills.”
Congratulations, Rachel! Very best wishes for your future ringing career!
Rachel receiving her certificate from Steve Vickars, Training Officer, Bicester Branch of Bellringers
Yesterday Kirtlington hosted an ART M1 Teaching Handling course, which was attended by ten students from near (including Tackley, Weston and Bicester), as well as from as far afield as Kent.
Our tutor was Nick Brett from Rugby, accompanied by a senior ART tutor, Clare McArdle. Susan Read from Old North Berks and Abingdon Ringing School also supported the event.
It was interesting to hear people’s previous experiences, several of whom had felt the need to gain teaching skills to ensure that their local bands can sustain and grow their numbers, while promoting good handling practice. From this, we could see a very wide range of experience and skills amongst the students.
The day was a mixture of presentation of theory (including “what is the role of ART” and “what are the key principles of learning a complex physical activity like ringing” and “what happens after this course”) and practical sessions in the tower with tied bells. Several tips and best practice were shared, beneficial for myself included.
The practical sessions covered first and basic handling teaching activities, through putting both strokes together, introducing raising and lowering with coils assisted and unassisted, to correcting common handling faults. Naturally, the teaching of good handling is in itself a very large subject and the overwhelming majority of students attending the course need the ongoing support of mentors and the ART community to develop their teaching craft.
Ruth Leatherdale, one of the students gave this reflection on the course:
“This was an extremely useful and informative day aimed at supporting those wishing to assist their tower with teaching inexperienced, hesitant and new ringers in bell handling and bell control.
The day included both theory and practical sessions, allowing all those who took part an opportunity to put into practice introducing bell handling skills from first principles as well as maintaining control of a bell with the ‘learner’ (aka experienced ringer!) in a supportive group environment.
I personally found that trying to articulate how to ‘ring’ from first principles was extremely challenging and I was grateful to be in a group environment, benefitting from listening to other ways of explaining and demonstrating the same thing.
The warm welcome; friendly, supportive and very knowledgeable training team; informative student pack and of course the constant supply of coffee, tea and biscuits throughout the day and excellent lunch made for a thoroughly enjoyable day whilst at the same time, learning a huge amount. Thank you to all involved.”
Our more local students have been invited to join the regular Winter Ringing School activities at Kirtlington and Abingdon to put their teaching skills into practice in a safe and supportive teaching environment leading eventually (if desired) to accreditation. This should help towards getting us in a better position to train new ringing recruits leading up to next year’s coronation.
On Saturday morning we launched this season’s winter Ringing School at Kirtlington, where Old North Berks and Bicester Branches will alternate hosting ringing handling sessions each week until March 2023.
Four learners from Witney and Woodstock Branch and five teachers/mentors from ONB and Bicester attended. As can be expected, the learners’ experience ranged from beginning to put both strokes together to brushing up on specific handling aspects to help ring Plain Hunt and methods effectively.
Debra from Witney commented: ”Dave and I wanted to pass on our thanks to you all for today’s training session. We thought it was fantastic and extremely helpful. We are looking forward to the rest of the course.”
Kirtlington will be hosting a course for learning to teach bell handling on 22nd October. Following this we would expect to be joined by new teachers looking to practice their teaching and working towards accreditation.
If you know anyone who would benefit from attending these sessions as a student or would like to help as a teacher, please get in touch.
Eleven ringers came to today’s Ringing up and down course at Bletchingdon, with five students and six helpers, giving us scope to form strong teams around our students as well as standers for those in the band.
We started in teams of four, with Christine, Ala Sue, David and Judith getting practice raising and lowering following an experienced ringer. We had a strong band of helpers, including Emma and Laurence, Celia, Alison and Hugh, some of whom stood with our students and explained in helpful ways.
We also took refreshments of tea, coffee, squash, homemade cake and biscuits, thank you to Sue, Hugh and Judith for providing these.
We built up to ringing five and six in peal, with all our students making real progress, whether keeping in time with the other ringers or gaining insights on handling tips and techniques.
Celia gained her first experience of leading up and down in peal, with Sue also practicing leading up and down a peal of six, with a stander.
Our helpers also got a chance to ring a plain course of Cambridge Minor before the final lower and obligatory team photo.
A really productive practice, with everyone making good progress. A big thank you to our superb helpers and to Sue for hosting us again!
I guess we’ll need to hold another such practice later this year for those who couldn’t come to today’s session.
A very successful Focussed Practice this afternoon with a strong band of helpers to support five of our regular ringers progress in trebling and inside to doubles and minor methods.
Sue M rang 3rd inside to plain courses of Grandsire Doubles, then trebled to a touch of St Simons bob doubles.
Sue C rang 3rd inside to plain courses of Grandsire doubles, then trebled to Plain Hunt Minor and two plain courses of Bob Minor, a first.
Gus rang treble to a touch of Plain Bob Doubles, then to plain courses of Bob Minor, for the first time. Well done, Gus.
Judith rang inside to touches of Grandsire doubles, practicing different work bobs and singles at and near lead.
Charlie rang inside to different touches of Grandsire Doubles, in the end without a stander (not needed), and also trebled to a plain course of Cambridge Surprise Minor, for the benefit of Benjamin.
I think everyone got a “prime ring” and will have gained confidence in their chosen work.
Our helpers were rewarded with tea, coffee and cake, brought by the students, and was much appreciated.
I hope to arrange a further session on 1st March, more focussed on Plain Hunt and trebling to doubles. Watch this space!
On Saturday 4th January the first group handling session of the year was held at St Helen’s Abingdon, attended by five learners from Weston, Wendlebury and Kirtlington plus Andrew gaining experience in teaching handling. Susan Read and her Abingdon team have most kindly offered to host training sessions at St Helens every Saturday morning until end March, so that we can offer training to a large number of recent recruits from Kirtlington, Weston and nearby.
This was a really good session, with one or more teachers per student and five learning at the same time.
I think the future of teaching handling looks quite like this.
Four Bicester Branch ringers from three towers plus Kathryn helping, attended this afternoon’s focussed practice at Bletchingdon, giving Sue M, Sally, Sue C and Judith valuable practice at trebling and inside to Doubles methods.
They were joined by a very experienced team of helpers from Bicester, Oxford City and Witney & Woodstock branches: Kathryn, Alison , Ron, Malcolm, Clare, Sue, Jane and Colin, who provided such strong support to the students.
Our helpers enjoyed tea, coffee and homemade cake in return.
Sue M and Sally rang plain courses of Grandsire, followed by observation then fully affected on 3. Well done, both!
Sue C trebled to touches of Grandsire, then to plain courses and touches of St Simon’s Bob Doubles. Some really nice striking was achieved.
Judith rang 4 to Grandsire Doubles affected, including a full 120 change touch with 9 bobs and singles.
Finally, Sue M, Sally and Judith rang down in peal with the team, a nice finish.
It was evident to all concerned that everyone made huge progress over the two practices this month, helped by the close proximity of the 2nd practice, ensuring momentum was maintained.
At Saturday’s focussed practice at Kirtlington there were five students from three towers and six helpers, to practice and reinforce methods which are already being learned, but little opportunity to practice regularly.
Sue , Judith , Sally , Sue and Charlie were helped by Paul, Elizabeth, Jane, Sue and Julie.
Everyone made good progress, Charlie did some great striking trebling to a touch of Plain Bob Doubles, Sue C trebled to touches of Grandsire Doubles, Sue M and Sally practiced 3rd bell to Grandsire Doubles including touches as observation.
Judith practiced 4th bell to Grandsire touches including both observation and moving into and out of the Hunt.
Thank you to all our helpers who really made a difference and all the students for bringing tea, coffee and cake.
ART M1 Course at Kirtlington 16th February 2019 On Saturday 16th February, Kirtlington hosted sixteen delegates and three senior members of the Association of Ringing Teachers (ART), led by tutor Paul Lewis, who attended the teaching of bell handling course M1. Kirtlington was chosen through its proximity to Weston-on-the-Green, where an entirely new team of ringers was trained by instructors from the Oxford Guild (of which just over half had attended ART training) over three months in 2018. The course, sponsored by Oxford Diocesan Guild for guild members, formed part of the concluding activities of the Weston training and was arranged by ODG’s Susan Read and Lesley Belcher from ART, who with Branch Secretary Kathryn Grant co-ordinated the many training sessions at Weston and neighbouring towers. The delegates came from as far afield as Newbury, Milton Keynes and Berkhamstead and also locally from Bladon and Islip, bringing varied, but also substantial ringing and teaching experience.
After a welcoming introduction by Katie Lane, ODG Master, the course combined theory and practical sessions, including how people learn (“learning styles”), how to break down teaching complex handling skills into manageable chunks, what makes a good teacher as well as follow-on activities after the course. The practical sessions introduced teaching handling from bell down, teaching separate strokes, putting the strokes together, raising and lowering, ringing style and how to intervene when needed. The course was well received by all delegates. Tea, coffee, biscuits, cake and lunch were provided and much appreciated. Many thanks to the team who contributed to a successful event! A follow-up assessment event is due to be scheduled for the delegates and their learners in the Autumn, also at Kirtlington.
We had a successful evening on Thursday 26 July with 8 potential recruits given an introduction to bellringing.
7 helpers came from Abingdon, Buckingham, and Maids Moreton to give support and encouragement with the addition of local ringers, Tower Captain Bob Hessian, Willie Haynes, Michael MacArthur, and Jeremy Adams.. The plan is that the new recruits will take part in a reasonably intensive (i.e. 10 hours) programme at W-o-t-G or possibly Bletchingdon, Kirtlington, Islip for instance as well. That’ll probably be an autumn project and we are extremely grateful to those who gave up their time (on one of the hottest evenings – so far!) to help.
