New Year Thoughts January 9, 2007
Posted by Brian in : Exc.el BLogs, GLOW, SSERC, STAG, Uncategorized , trackbackHaving a bit of time to myself over the past couple of weeks I had time to sit down and think about the coming year. Here are some of the things I thought about.
I am looking forward to my role as a GLOW mentor. I should be attending my mentor training around at the end of May with the project itself hopefully being rolled out towards the end of the year.
In the first quarter of the year the full report carried out by SSERC and STAG into CPD provision for technical support staff will be ready to be published. It was commissioned by the Scottish Executive and will be extremely important in helping to map out the future of the technician service in Scotland. My hope is that local government education departments take full stock of what it contains and act on its recommendations.
As a member of the Scottish Technicians Advisory Group, and with their support, my aim is to try and improve accessibility to CPD for technical support staff within East Lothian and to assist and advise the council should it wish to implement the recommendations contained within the Scottish Executive report.
At the national technicians conference in Crieff last year one of the points discussed was that technicians should work to raise the awareness of the important job we do in the learning and teaching process. Having received many positive, and the occasional negative comment about my blog I think I have succeeded in doing so however little that it may be.
I am still very much new to the blogging game and not too sure how much I have done to promote the work of support staff. I have had many emails from people far and wide with words of encouragement so I will continue to blog throughout 2007 with my aims being to further raise the profile of support staff , air issues that may have no other forum for discussion and generally try and inform people of the work that is entailed in being a science technician in a large school within a relatively small local authority. 
By last and no means least single status / Job evaluation is still to be finalised in East Lothian. We should be hearing more around mid February. It would be great if the unions and the council came to mutual agreement. Things around the country have got a bit messy in some councils and the thought of going through what other employees and local authorities have gone through doesn’t bear thinking about, especially as the exercise has dragged on for around six years here.
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Excellent - I look forward to reading your blog in 2007 and beyond! See you soon (we do work in the same building after all!) Ollie
John Connell was interviewed about Glow in the Guardian’s “Learning Platforms” supplement today - I’ll pass it on if you like. It’s another piece in the jigsaw!
A good new year to you Brian and I hope it will turn out to be a good year for you and for all school support staff . Your site has provided such a wealth of information already and I for one look forward to reading more ..so keep up the good work ..your efforts are greatly appreciated.
cheers
Harry
Keep blogging Brian. I enjoy keeping up to date with what is happening
Mike