TIPD Programme

The Teachers' International Professional Development (TIPD) Programme was introduced by the UK Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in May 2000.

The programme provides opportunities for teachers in England to develop their teaching skills by experiencing best practice in a number of key themes through short-term international study visits. Such visits also aim to create valuable international links between schools, facilitating international school partnerships and information sharing on a global level.

The TIPD programme provides 2,500 places per year. Since the programme was launched, TIPD programme participants have visited diverse countries across the world – including Singapore, Australia, Hungary, China, Sweden and the USA – to study themes such as ICT, special educational needs (SEN), Citizenship and Literacy.

TIPD History in Ukraine

The programme started in Odesa in February 2002. Since then the schools in the region have hosted 15 groups of teachers from Local Educational Authorities of Richmond, North London, Birmingham, Lancashire, Calderdale, Brent, Wiltshire, Warrington, Cheshire and Salford.

The visits were organised by the British Council Odesa with the help of the local educational authorities in Odesa and Crimea.

The themes of the visits reflect the issues, which are of interest to teachers of both countries, especially in the present-day world context:

• Gifted and Talented Children
• Social Inclusion/Behaviour in Inner Cities
• Citizenship Education
• Transition from Primary to Secondary Education
• Teaching Foreign Languages in Primary School.

More than 30 Ukrainian schools took part in the project, among them: Odesa schools N263, 40, 50, 263, 17, 275, 300, 84, specialised secondary Odesa schools 121 and 10, Odesa grammar schools N2, 4, 5, 9, Prof. Stolyarsky Music School, Yuzhny school N3, Charity Fund 'Children's Village ASTR', College of Law, Chernomorski Lyceum and others.

One of the outcomes of these visits was the possibility to establish direct links between schools in the region and Great Britain.

Recent visits of UK teachers to the region include:

• 9–15 April 2006, 'Teaching & Learning strategies, with reference to Gifted & Talented provision' (Worcestershire LEA) – Simferopol and Yalta
• 16–22 April 2006, 'Teaching and Learning Geography' (Devon LEA) – Odesa ( report is available)
• 21–28 October 2006. 'Creativity with Music' (Sandwell LEA) – Odesa
• 8–15 April 2007, 'Behavioural Management' (Durham LEA) – Odesa
• 20–27 October 2007, 'Creative Curriculum and Innovative Planning' (Wirral LEA) – Odesa ( report is available)
• 1–8 March 2008 'Personalised Learning' (Yorks and Humberside LEA) – Odesa.

Contact us

Lyudmila Tatsenko
Regional Manager

33, Fontanskaya Doroga
International Humanitarian University
Odesa 65009
Ukraine
Telephone/fax +380 48 718 8119/39