Category: Report

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.