Last month I got an email from my Union asking if I would like to attend the 2012 Regional Early Career Teachers conference at the Hilton in Gateshead. The programme looked good with a focus on SEN, Behaviour Management and Ofsted new assessment. All of these being hot topics in ITE, I decided to attend and left Mr Bewell home alone with the kids for the weekend. Win! On arrival, I firstly observed that I was definitely at the older end of Early Career Teacher!!! Joking aside, I had a great weekend and am now keen to get more involved with the work of my union, who are desperate for new, even and young(er) active members. The people I met were engaging, intelligent and keen to learn and the training was of a very high quality. The resources from the event can be found here: http://www.rect.org.uk/ I hope you find them useful. If, like me, you have never attended a Union CPD event, my advice would be to go for it. I am now hoping to attend another event in late Marg linked to International Development work... Always learning. All the best, Suzi