In my first blog I talked about getting out from behind the desk.  This week I haven’t seen my desk. I have travelled around 660 miles and have gained a huge amount of information about the change/improvement agenda in Scottish Education and how we are meeting the needs of our children and young people in Argyll and Bute during this fast moving change agenda.

On Monday I set off for Edinburgh to attend a meeting with Scottish Government and ADES to discuss the National Improvement Framework and the publishing of the data.  This meeting involved all 32 authorities discussing and reviewing data sets for the reporting of P1, P4, P7 and S3 literacy and numeracy levels.  This was a very informative and at times challenging afternoon discussing the way forward and the forthcoming publication of the data.

Continue reading Journeys 660 miles – Car, Train and Ferry →

Taking care of our mental health is at least as important as healthy eating or increasing our exercise to acceptable levels – is that ever achievable? The educational psychology service supports children, young people, families, schools and partners to think about what we can do to be mentally healthy.

The difficult news is that mental health issues in young people are increasing. Recent national reports highlight the importance of increasing access to evidence based interventions that will improve outcomes for children and young people. There is also significant importance placed on the role of schools in identifying concerns and offering early support.

Continue reading Looking after our mental health →

Argyll and Bute is blessed with many wonderful attributes and without doubt one of our greatest, and often much maligned, is our young people! Several years ago, I had a manager who told me that I should count myself lucky to be a youth worker as “working with young people wasn’t just a job it was a privilege.” Now, if I’m honest…… I can’t say that it always feels that way but there is nothing better than working alongside young people in our communities, supporting them to develop as individuals and strive to reach their potential.

The Youth Service Team works with a wide range of young people on an even wider range of programmes, subjects and issues.  Routinely, a youth worker may find themselves working in a school with a group of young people on a personal development programme one day and out in a community centre one to one with a young person on an Activity Agreement the next.  Regardless of the context the common approach used is to work with the young person on their terms, forming often quite unique bonds of trust to negotiate worthwhile and exciting programmes. Formal and informal youth work can significantly improve young people’s opportunities through learning, personal development and active citizenship.

Continue reading Youth Work Changes Lives! →

This week has been a serious of me requiring to meet deadlines for producing responses to policy, consultations, strategies and answers to letters emails.  I am having two weeks holidays and have set myself an undoable task list.  Why do we always do this?  In schools I know the run up to the holidays can often be frantic and how much we all try to fit in.  I suppose naturally as you reach the end of term it is about ensuring closure on many elements of work.  Assessments undertaken, reports up-to-date, planning for next term and the list goes on.  Please remember that you need your holidays just as much as the young people.  I think that holidays need to be about that much needed rest, reflection and reading, the 3Rs.

Continue reading Deadlines and Holidays →

We are constantly being challenged on how to close the attainment gap.  I personally don’t think it is only about attainment.  Very high on my agenda is achievement and how this promotes health and wellbeing which does put all learners in a far stronger place to increase attainment.  This has been a very strong belief of mine for a number of years and indeed was the key message given to Michael Russel, Cabinet Secretary for Life Long Learning in 2012 from his attainment advisor group.  The attainment advisor group were selected for success in raising attainment and to give advice on how this could be shared with colleagues.  I was privileged to be one of the 5 members of this group and was seconded to Scottish Government for 6 months.  Along with my colleagues, Val Cory, Arlene Black, Brian McAlindon and Lindsey Watt we focused on research, good practice and what really worked.  We were all very clear on how important achievement was in closing the gap.  Although this work was 4 years ago there is much to be learned from it and is still relevant and helpful to work on raising attainment.  Some information from the group can be found at:

http://engageforeducation.org/news/videos-attainment-group-raising-attainment/

Continue reading Achievement →

Another busy week but a very different one for me. I have been in Inveraray all week. This is a big change for me. This week colleagues from Education Scotland have been working in the Local Authority inspecting the Education Services of the Council. The week has been made up of many focus groups both centrally at Inveraray and across each of the geographical areas. I have been spending the week supporting the planning and taking the opportunity of the benefit of catching up with staff who have been involved in the groups. A huge thank you to all who took part in the activities and all the positive comments. We have to wait for the team to finalise their findings before the feedback.

Whilst the week has been going forward I have managed to be able to reflect on many of the positive areas of work which is taking place in Argyll and Bute.

Continue reading Reflections →

A great deal of my work last week was round the theme of leadership. Leadership is so important for all of us in Education. We need to ensure our children and young people are being led by inspirational leaders.

Nothing makes me prouder than hearing about or seeing an inspirational practitioner leading the learning for young people. I am so pleased when I hear of this happening. I have had a couple of conversations with Head Teachers this week who were telling me of how the leadership of practitioners was impacting in their schools and on the outcomes for the young people.

Leadership is important across many areas of our work and on Monday the Budget Working Group met to review the current status of the available budget and the impact across the service of recent service choices decisions. This group is chaired by David Bain, Education Manager and has membership of Head Teachers, Central Education Team, HR and Finance colleagues. Budget and the management of resources is a very important role for leaders and it is key that we make the best use of resources and look at how this impacts on delivery for the young people. My own role in this group is to provide advice and guidance to ensure that decisions made sit within policy and can be delivered.

Continue reading Leadership →

This week for me has been about policy and how it relates into actions that impact on our young people. Policy according to Wikipedia:

A policy is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by the Board of or senior governance body within an organization whereas procedures or protocols would be developed and adopted by senior executive officers.

On Monday at DMT we had our regular management meeting with the union representatives. This was the first one that I attended as Head of Service and was very interested in how the interpretation of policy is taken forward by the reps on behalf of their members. Policy is only useful if it supports the actions and indeed supports those who deliver outcomes.

On Tuesday it was the first Head Teacher meeting of session 2016/17. This was an important meeting to explore together the policy implications regarding the direction of change for improvement which has been set out by Scottish Government. We also took time to explore the data from both SQA results and the National Improvement Framework (NIF) achieving a level. There are some important issues coming through from this data especially in relation to literacy and numeracy improvement.

Continue reading Policy into actions →

Our biggest resource in Education is our people. This week I have had a very people centred week. I love working with people and know how important it is to value the huge variety of skills across our workforce.

On Monday I was very proud to spend a couple of hours with Professor Carol Campbell from Ontario and Lochgair. Carol is an Argyll girl who is an academic and is one of the International Education Advisors to the Scottish Government. Carol arranged to meet with me prior to the first summit meeting this week in Edinburgh. I was so pleased that she wanted to hear my opinions about closing the gap, raising attainment and the current delivery plan for Scottish Education. We had a very good professional conversation.

Continue reading People Matter →