An Education and Vision strategy has been created by Argyll and Bute Council’s Education Service to ensure that children and young people continue to achieve the best possible outcomes as a result of changes to local and national policy. This strategy has been titled Our Children, Their Future.
In Argyll and Bute, we want to ensure that young people are equipped through their Education to become successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. We want young people and families to remain in this area, and be attracted to live here.
Currently a big part of my role as Acting Head of Service: Education is to ensure that the vision within the document is taken forward and becomes a live working document which everyone involved in Education can feel they have ownership over.
The document highlight s the following areas which we will address
- Raise educational attainment and achievement for all
- Use performance information to secure improvement for children and young people
- Ensure children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed
- Equip young people to sustain positive destinations and achieve success in life
- Strengthen partnership working and community engagement
- Strengthen leadership at all levels
I thought I would look at the work I have been involved in this week and see how it has been contributing to addressing the 6 key areas. During this past week I have been involved in work in each of these areas.
Raise educational attainment and achievement for all
I have had a variety of conversations this week with Head Teachers on staffing issues and trying to secure enough teaching staff to work in classes and with individuals to rains the educational attainment for all. I have also been involved in looking at the work we are taking forward to develop teacher professional judgement.
Use performance information to secure improvement for children and young people
I met with Louise Connor on Monday afternoon and we discussed the data we currently and have looked at analysis of this information and how we move forward in ensuring this data is key to our improvement agenda.
Ensure children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed
On Friday afternoon I had a telephone consultation to gather my strategic views on the move towards 1140 hours for Early Learning and Child Care. I was very clear that this cannot be seen as a way to close the attainment gap by only relying on schools to provide the answers. This needs a much wider approach by society and the need to involve families.
Equip young people to sustain positive destinations and achieve success in life
On Tuesday I met with Wendy Brownlie and Gary Clark to review the work being undertaken in our schools regarding digital learning. We are committed to developing digital learning and looking at how we can use this to be creative for curriculum delivery. It is a very important area when considering our young people and their destinations in the future.
Strengthen leadership at all levels
On Wednesday I was very pleased to have been invited to the inaugural event of Stirling Network for Curriculum Studies. The content of the day was Curriculum Development in Scotland, Responding to the OECD Review. The day consisted of excellent speakers and opportunities to take part in workshops all with the focus of leading and developing Curriculum for Excellence. Key note speakers were Jan van den Akker, National Institute for Curriculum Design Netherlands and Anne Looney, director of the Higher Education Authority , Republic of Ireland. This is an excellent network which will be key to leading curriculum development in the next phase of Curriculum for Excellence.
On Thursday the Education Management Team met and had a very productive session on Service Planning and looking towards the strategic direction for the Education Service for 17/18
Strengthen partnership working and community engagement
On Friday morning I met with Catriona Garvin, Education Support Officer for Gaelic and caught up with the major developments she has been undertaking. Catriona has been looking at curriculum pathways and supporting Gaelic Medium classes. She and I then met with the Oban Comann nam Pàrant group and looked at how we could promote Gaelic Education and support the work in the Oban area.
I then met with Lucy Sumsion in her dual role of parent and NFU Officer and discussed Dyslexia. Lucy had many challenges for us as an authority but also many ideas of how we could work together.
I had very positive partnership meeting with Food for Life and Crofting Connection on Wednesday looking at our approach to promoting food education. Again this type of partnership working enhances the work we do in schools.
http://www.foodforlife.org.uk/
http://www.croftingconnections.com/
I met will the Chair and Vice Chair of Hermitage Academy Parent Council on Thursday. This meeting was very positive in promoting working together and in partnership. It is useful for me to understand parent point of view and to explain the position from an Authority point of view.
We will be rolling out the Strategy as we go forward into November and December.
Please feel free to contact me with your views on how we get best engagement to make a difference to Our Children and Their Future.
