A recent ART module 1: teaching bell handling course was held a Knighton with Rebecca Odames as the course tutor. Here are some comments from some of the attendees:

After taking over as tower captain duties at St Mary’s Anstey from my late father it was obvious we needed to have a recruitment drive. Teaching bellringing has always looked scary to me so I wasn’t confident trying even though I’m a competent ringer.

I attended the module 1 ART course at Knighton ran by Rebecca Odames and was impressed with how NOT scary ART training methods were. It broke down teaching into sensible small sections and has given me an insight and the confidence to teach new people.

I would recommend this course to people already teaching and those starting their teaching journey.

Marion Pegge

There’s loads I could say about the course!

Thanks to you to Becki for being an excellent teacher –  calm, encouraging, approachable and very knowledgeable .

It was an extremely helpful and informative course. It gave a well structured method for teaching learners, breaking everything down into simple, safe, easy steps. The day gave me the confidence to feel that I could teach bell ringing to someone else and provides backup and further support when needed.

I would strongly recommend anyone, no matter how experienced a ringer they are, who is teaching or going to be teaching bell ringing, to consider attending the course.

Jane Boyd

It was with some trepidation that I attended this course, not having done any teaching before, I felt I needed to build some confidence to be able to.  I also wasn’t sure of the method of teaching, having learnt to ring myself by the ‘old school’ method.  

I have been converted, I felt this method of teaching was safer, not only for the learner but also the teacher.  No banging of stays as most of the teaching was done just below the balance.  I was amazed and impressed by the fact that some of the attendees had not been ringing that long and were willing to take on the role of teaching.  I liked the process of theory first then practical at each stage of the process and the support we will get from mentors back in our own towers.  For the first time I feel able to advertise the fact that St Andrews, Aylestone is open for learners to augment our band.

Thank you Becki for an interesting, fun and it has to be said tiring day, and to all my fellow classmates for making the day a happy experience, it was lovely meeting you all.

Liz Wright

I approached this course with a lot of trepidation, as a new ringer and as I’ve been surrounded by a large group of learners from scratch I’ve seen many incidents. I question why would I want to teach something so stressful and scary. Being a ‘sucker for punishment’ and having a passion for bellringing and its quintessential association with history I decided I’d do it.

Well, what a revelation this course was. It has obviously been refined over the years to take the risk and stress out of teaching and benefit the student with an excellent process to ‘learning the ropes’.
I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who is thinking of teaching students form scratch.

I’m really keen to start training my first student.

Richard Garner