If only communication was better…..” This is a phrase we often here no matter where we are working in the service.  I have been thinking about communication a lot over the past week and not only how it can be improved but how we use communication.

Last Monday I was finishing my holiday week in Madeira.  It was a lovely week and we enjoyed the lovely scenery and finding out about the culture and heritage of the island. One of the things I was most impressed with was the skills of all staff we met and their ability to communicate so well in English. Tourism is a huge important aspect of the island economy and all young people in schools are required to be proficient in speaking English. It made me reflect on our Scottish Languages 1 +2 Programme and the aspiration for all our P1’s to access another foreign language and P5’s to access two.  I was delighted to come home to the latest newsletter on our Argyll and Bute Languages 1 +2 programme which has all the latest communication on the progress happening.  Argyll & Bute 1+2 Languages Newsletter,

On Tuesday I was straight back into work looking at the latest learning technology work at our regular Education Technologies Strategy Group.  This group has recently been joined by the following staff from schools Bernie MacMillan, Paul Gallanagh, Elaine McGeaghy and Minnie McLellan.  I was very pleased to learn about the motivation and engagement in reading which using a digital literacies approach is taking place in some of our schools.

I also took part in a learning action set on Tuesday afternoon which provides opportunity to improve communication skills between Heads of Service and how this can be used in each service area.

On Wednesday it was our regular JSC group meeting where there is opportunity to discuss changes and challenges which meet the needs of both the unions and the management. This is a meeting I really value and look forward to using this platform to improve our communications. This week we discussed papers which will be going forward to Community Services committee in December.  We also have put onto the agenda two regular standard items for discussion and communication:

• Workload
• Poverty in Schools

Thursday was Education Management Team.  This is a valuable time for me to have open dialogue and communication with the Managers of the service. We are all based throughout Argyll and Bute and need to use online communication but nothing beats actually moving forward actions and face to face opportunities for communication.  We spent quite a bit of the morning on service planning with support from colleagues in IOD explaining the new corporate service planning tool and how we should be linking to this process.  As always this is a very tight timescale and we are slightly frustrated at what needs to be done in such a short space of time.  Once this stage of the service planning is in place we will be communicating with staff and look at how the planning for next session will be developing the vision and strategy document of Our Children their Future.

On Thursday I also had an invitation which I unfortunately could not accept to the Scottish Improvement Advisors Awards in Edinburgh.  Kathleen Johnston, Education Officer: Early Years has been working towards this award all year.  The Scottish Improvement Leader (ScIL) Programme is a lead-level quality improvement course developed by a number of Scottish Public Service Improvement Partners and co-ordinated by NHS Education for Scotland.

The aim of ScIL is to develop individuals who can design, develop and lead improvement projects, generate support for change and provide expert improvement support and advice. It is aimed at people working in the Scottish Public Service in a role with a significant focus on quality improvement and dedicated time allocated to lead large-scale improvement projects.

Kathleen said “I was part of Cohort 3 of the Programme. The graduation event was held at Murrayfield, where some members were given the opportunity to share their project through a short presentation. I presented on our parental engagement project at Tarbert and shared a video of Kirsten Paterson and myself talking about the project, along with photos of the children. The parents finished off the video with their thoughts on the project – one parent said that she now knows that children learn through play. Another parent said that the Learning Journey not only shared what her child was learning, but why and this helped her link learning to home”.

There will be future opportunities for people to be involved in ScIL – it would be great to build a network of improvement leaders in Argyll and Bute!  Well done Kathleen.

On Friday I had various telephone meetings all involving communication of important messages. These meetings included Head Teacher, Policy Lead, and Executive Director.

All this week I have been following on social media the journey of Carolyn MacAlpine, HR and OD Manager.  She was completing 15 marathons in 15 days to raise sponsorship for the Beatson Hospital in Glasgow.  Carolyn completed on Saturday and on behalf of the Service I would like to extend our congratulations.

On Saturday the Middle Leadership Group met for a networking event and this was facilitated by Sandra Clark.  This is a wonderful opportunity to meet and take the opportunity to discuss issues within daily delivery and how improvements can be made.

It is very good to talk and I recently enjoyed a fellow blogger George Gilchrest contribution on “it’s good to talk.

http://scotedublogs.org/author/george-gilchrist/

I would like to thank my two guest bloggers Martin Turnbull and Roslyn Redpath for their blogs the last two weeks.  If you haven’t had a chance yet to read their contributions please do so.  Both communicate so well on the contributions that both Youth Services and Educational Psychology have to the overall Education Service.

As we go through this week and this term remember how good it is to communicate and network. This provides us all with the professional “top up” we all need no matter what our role is within the service.