 Okay, welcome everybody. That neon screen is just awesome, isn't it? I love all of those little films. Welcome to Joy Fee, more than a hashtag. Those of you who know my connections with Joy Fee will know this is really close to my heart. And just waiting to be joined by Sammy White, who is presenting this session. She can hear me and I can see her now. Hello, Sammy. Hello. How are you? Yeah, I'm good, thank you. Excellent, yeah, I'm really happy. This morning is thrilling to me. I'm going to introduce you now, and I know you're going to be doing all sorts of squirming, but I'm introducing Sammy as a freelance shero and a digital nurse par excellence, I have to say. So Sammy is not only a Google innovator, which is the top 75 Google innovators in the world. She's also the first female Google certified coach in Europe. Back history of Fee Community College in England. And she is an incredibly prolific and insightful blogger. So Emma Jane, who's supporting us with this session from ALT is going to pop into the comments, links to Sammy's blog on her website. And also to Ian Booth, English and maths Booth, a podcast she shares with Holly Barnes, which is taking the world by storm. I think you got a little message from Apple the other day, didn't you? We did, we were told we were top 36 in Apple podcast this week. That is just incredible. Anyway, I'll say no more. I hope that was a lovely buildup. And off you go, Sammy, I'm so excited. Thanks very much, Lou. So yeah, my name is Sammy. I am a further education practitioner, and you've heard from my colleague Stacy today. And although we don't work in the same organization, she is my colleague because we form under the same hashtag of Joy Fee. I'm just the storyteller today of Joy Fee. And these are just some of the wonderful stories that we've got to share. So let's dive in. Joy Fee was born out of a need to stay connected and care for each other when the pandemic hit. A group of passionate FE educators came together via WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and email. Open invitations, including ones myself, were extended to those who needed it. People who needed to feel joy. The Ideas Room was branded early on. And it's a held meeting via Zoom, but any platform that houses breakout rooms works, including Google Meet. This is the magazine. The magazine uses tools from Google, Microsoft, and ultimately it's published via Lucid Press. Contributors are encouraged and sourced via the hashtag on social media. We are devised and platform agnostic. We come together around a hashtag. The meetings that take place via Zoom on the Ideas Room spill out onto the hashtag onto social media. These were the people living the hashtag when I took this snapshot at the weekend. And this is a constant flow of people because we are a collective. The joy of connecting with people in periods of isolation and the feeling of being listened to and listening to others meant that people returned week after week bringing their ideas to the Ideas Room. In bringing their ideas and sharing their experiences, the magazine and everything else in between saw the hashtag grow. The Ideas Room operates in the thinking environment principles of the work of Nancy Klein. Role rank and ego are left at the door. The space is open and inclusive and actively promotes joy. There is no host, but there is a facilitator. There is also the role of flu powder, which is the person that puts people into breakout rooms, but is a reference to Harry Potter when they go up the chimneys and they have the powder. These tasks driven roles are there for necessity to make the space work, but they are rotated around the collective. Everyone is invited to participate and engage and take on these roles. The power of the language in that it's a facilitator rather than a host enacts the values of openness, joy and care for all. These experiences, as you can see, spill out onto the hashtag. When people leave the Ideas Room, they take their ideas into their own organizations, be it an idea they brought that they had developed or one that they listened to and they thought that could make a difference for me. Many participants work in organizations of further education, adult education, community education. JoyFE works alongside that role. This rhizomatic constellation of practice akin to the work of mycroff and sidebottom recognizes that teams and projects are not forever. There is a flow of members. I want you to think of a water lily. Only the stem and the flower are visible, but there's been a lot of work to get to that point. And that lily has only flourished because it sought the right conditions. This is the work of the collective. We gather around the hashtag and we continue our work and we emerge as a flower such as today when the conditions arise. I'm just the storyteller. We form around a hashtag, not a platform. Membership isn't card carrying. And anyone who engages with the hashtag is a member if they so wish. I'm going to tell you some of the tales of how this hashtag and this collective has begun to change further education practices here in the UK. I was invited as a maths teacher to work with a colleague in another institution. She brought an idea to an ideas room of how she would like her maths department to look and feel. We thought together, I listened to her thinking and we developed her idea. This department following my visit now has a whole new approach to teaching and learning in certain topics. Education is for the improving of lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. This is Joy Fee. As the ideas grow and the ideas develop, many colleagues of Joy Fee now have newsletters in their organisations, changing the culture in their organisation from the grassroots, sharing best practice of teaching and learning via these newsletters. The skills that we've learned in the ideas room and the thinking environment principles have had impact with our activities with staff, improving our attention and our generated listening. And many organisations are seeing the shift in the way they hold meetings based on the experiences people are bringing back. We were recognised by ALT when they undertook communities of practice and significant influence in the sector. And there we are proudly in their remixer map. ALT recognised that communities of practice were most successful when they're taking place, using hashtags or Twitter chats, open, accessible to everyone. ALT's audit identified many examples that were around broadcasting and sharing and bringing together each other. This is how further education is changing. I want to share you a story of a colleague who said that the impact of Joy Fee on their organisation is that their language is now authentic, not just kind. By bringing ideas to the ideas room and listening to others' ideas, they have developed an authentic culture of practice of teaching and learning in their organisation. This is a podcast that my colleague, and again, Sarge is a colleague because we connect around the hashtag around the collective. He wanted to share his rich experience of being an educational practitioner, working with students with additional complex needs. And we thought around an idea of how we could amplify his work and share his voice. He's brought the idea many times to the ideas room and together me and others who have been there and this flow of people have come in. This idea is now a podcast of his own. He's changing Fee by sharing his practice, sharing his experiences and inviting others into the discussion. I want to tell you about a colleague who was only ever referred to work with staff when staff were on performance management issues. This colleague brought this issue of negativity to the ideas room. The idea was thought through and developed by the group and the collective. It spilled out onto the hashtag. Further members contributed and connected with this individual. And now that process has been changed. Staff can now self-select to come work with this individual. In this organisation, they have implemented the ideas room as a way of working and coaching and mentoring others. I want to share with you the stories of the impact that this individual has had. I'm just going to mute it just for audio reasons, but you can see that in this organisation they've brought in the ideas room as a thinking environment for staff to develop and work with each other. They regularly meet and there's been changes on practice. They're calling it leading from the middle. They had 16 participants and 100% of them found it effective and beneficial to their practice. Some of the quotes that some of the staff said are going to come on the screen now. This is how staff are feeling that their practice is being changed because an idea was brought to the ideas room of how can I engage with my staff? The collective around the hashtag helped this person develop this process. And this is now changing the culture in their organisation. There have been challenges of joy if a professional curiosity has turned into professional jealousy in some institutions. There has been a battle between those that want to share and those that don't. But these have been small and minor. Impact has been felt in many more organisations than those that have experienced negativity. I want to tell you a story about how a member was bringing an idea of a process of observation that was being changed in their place of work. They were unhappy at this change and knew it didn't feel right for them and their team. With Roland Canigo left at the door, they had no idea they were sitting in a room with an expert on the matter. This conversation happened and it spilled out onto the hashtag afterwards. A Twitter poll happened and people engaged. This member of the collective has now gone back to their organisation with evidence and has now changed the entire teaching and learning observation model in their organisation. This is Aspire and this is from Chesterfield College. This idea was brought multiple times to the ideas room and I've been there for some of them and missed others. So it's a real wonder to see it develop over time. This Aspire programme has seen a significant number of students who were previously rated red and amber excel to blue and green in Chesterfield College. I want to read the definition of Aspire from one of the practitioners that leads it. Aspire is a programme developed by each vocational team to enhance the qualifications ensuring that students will leave college as happy, independent, confident individuals prepared for the challenges that work in life, higher level learning and family life might bring them. Developed by curriculum teams, employers and students to meet the ever-changing industry needs in a post-COVID world. The students of Chesterfield College's experience is significantly enhanced because of an idea that was brought to Joyafe. One member of Joyafe slowly has been sharing ideas and best practice in their organisation. They've been recognised, senior leadership have seen this shift and they've now created a steering group that this member leads on how can this organisation change its culture to best serve the needs of its staff and students. But Joyafe isn't just in the UK, isn't just in England. It isn't just here in Yorkshire. It is global. The power of the hashtag over social media meant that educators across the world have seen it and engaged. This is my colleague Melissa who engaged on the hashtag and she is my colleague because she is a member of the collective of Joyafe. I'm just the storyteller today, there are many of us. Melissa brought an idea of how she could develop staff well-being in her school district in America. It's now turned into a you matter mail, a program, a website, an active program for staff to engage with for their own well-being all from the ideas that were developed in the ideas room because she's connected via the hashtag. As I listened to my new friends I heard validation of what was in my heart that realisation spoke quietly to make my heart made all the difference. So what is the future of Joyafe? Joyafe remains devised, platform agnostic and open to all. Some of the administration have now moved from the informal WhatsApp to a still informal Google chat group. The magazine continues. The ideas room has to be split weekly due to the number of people coming meaning we need more facilitators and more people on flu powder. Minecraft and side-bottom speak of constellations of practice being messy because energies are unexpected. Joyafe embraces that spirit and will continue to live on. The collective that formed around the hashtag has now become the catalyst for change within many further education institutions. Thank you. Well I'm an absolute wreck after this session and now this that was amazing Sammy. There's nothing like seeing something you're involved in like seeing through somebody else's eyes to be able to. I was just sitting back thinking wow this is really special and also for anybody listening now or later on YouTube if you've been around open education long enough to remember rise 014 this is it this is it this is a rhizomatic professional practice which is nobody owns and we all belong. Right come on you've got to have some questions folks. Let's hear from you and see. Chrissie asked me a question but I'm going to ask you Sammy would things be different if we focus more on working together? Absolutely, I was reading some quotes before I came on and one of them in particular was like how we're better learning from each other and when we learn from each other we learn better understanding of others and understandings that's something that we can't quantify. You can't I can't tell you that you understand something you can't tell me you understand something because it's your understanding and it's my understanding and the only way you can develop that skill is by learning from others because that's how you develop understanding because you see how other people tackle it. Yeah no totally and you know it's no it's no overclaim to say that what used to be called CPD in further education like drive by. Sheep dip. Sheep dip absolutely that's a proper Yorkshire term sheep dip is now a professional learning that we you know we can bang on for ages but Marin has asked what's next and this is an important question because Joy Fee is anti-competitive and we have to practice and work at that don't we that's not always easy we feel it's still even amongst each other and we don't own the spin-off so Joy Fee doesn't own the Aspire programme in Chesterfield and it doesn't own Joy FM and this is a great opportunity you are doing there. Yeah so Joy FM at joyfm.co.uk launches on the 4th of May and its name is Everyone in Education which is twofold one is we are all in education all the time always learning from each other and the other is you don't need to be a teacher to educate young people and young minds absolutely everyone has an impact on everyone's education the cleaner that cleans my son's classroom is showing him hard work ethics and graft payoff so it's going to be a platform to amplify voices so if you have a voice or a story that you want to share you might want to host you might want to guest it is a complete open invitation for everyone always brilliant that was perfectly expressed we've still got a couple of minutes Maryn says radio I am there so I expect to call from that quote Stacey said that was stunning absolutely loved it and Brian is loving the storytelling and the voices that you you you replayed there and any more questions folks or any more that you want to say about where next for Joy Fee Sammy? I think what we need to do is I don't want to get rid of the FE because it's important but we also need to recognize that we've now reached not just FE spaces so how do we transform and grow and that's the thought process that the collective will need to think through in an ideas room in a thinking environment of how do we enact those values of openness while still holding FE in the title and we need to think about that more broadly I always say it's not a party unless everyone's invited but also there's a difference between saying you're open and actively bringing people in and that's the challenge now yeah no that's absolutely the case actively bringing people in and we very much are putting the word out for diversity we're very aware that not all of us but quite a lot of us look pretty much like each other you know we're not happy about that that's just how things work putting the the message out there and getting more people involved in the administration and in the spinoffs Marron says how can we help and amplify what you do and Chrissie yes absolutely bringing educators more widely together we don't see those silos we're just not having them and we would love to join up with the chat that you're suggesting there Chrissie maybe that could come in a banner how can ALT how can the community here which is international help and amplify what we do last words from you Sammy Amplify FE has been fantastic and bringing us together but again it's got that FE hashtag so we need to come together to think about our language to actively bring others in to hear other voices because like I said we only learn when we're better with other people and hear other stories fantastic absolutely getting touched by the hashtag joy FE for any questions anything that you want to ask Sammy about at what the trig max and let's talk and let's keep working together Sammy that was stunning thank you so much and thanks everybody for coming along thank you for listening everyone bye