Comments on: Revolution, not Evolution

By: Lawrence Alexander

Lawrence Alexander — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:51:18 +0000

Don

What an exciting vision - great potential and inspirational. I intend to table this blog at Scottish Borders Curriculum Group tomorrow if you have no objections as a ‘food for thought’ paper

Best wishes

Lawrence

By: Derek Dixon

Derek Dixon — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:43:02 +0000

This is great but I do think that the word ’safely’ ought to appear in point 29.

By: Don Ledingham

Don Ledingham — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:21:33 +0000

Thanks all.

I’m delighted to say that 75% of these ideas have been accepted by our Head Teachers as being worthy of immediate consideration. Obviously some of the main challenges lie in the practical solutions but the first step is often getting acceptance of the principle. I think this level of collective agreement is a great testimony to our headteachers.

Anamaria

I’m glad you found our work to be of relevance to education in Brazil. It only goes to show that that there are many more similarities between education systems than there are differences.

By: Anamaria Camargo

Anamaria Camargo — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:11:13 +0000

Very interesting ideas. I wish someone were thiniking as seriously about education here in Brail as you are. I just wonder if teachers are being prepared for this new educational paradigm. I’d definitely like to hear more about it.

By: Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:33:33 +0000

Well done a great vision and you will find that SQA is ready to come with you and that you are going where other sectors especially further education have already moved to.

I think this partnership will deliver to Scottish learners the skills they need and I hope through GLOW and other tools the curriculum and the ‘test’ will be regularly shaped and reviewed by teachers and learners to a much greater extent than is currently the case.

This is a great post - have a well earned break

By: Ian Stuart

Ian Stuart — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:01:26 +0000

Hi Don
Here at Islay High we have been Implementing number 2. with some success. I have some video’s if you would like to see them I can send you a copy.
Also I think that anyone in learning could choose any examination system in the world. This has some dangers as I think large corporations could drive there own skills based curriculum.

By: Jim McDougall

Jim McDougall — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:34:35 +0000

I agree with the other posts-this is an exciting manifesto you have drawn up which maps out a very challenging, maybe controversial, vision for EL, but which is bound to have an impact well beyond its borders. I think the notion of deploying staff to the “learning campus” (rather like government proposals for polyclinics?) will meet some resistance-does the “authority” (a somewhat abstact entitity) replace the school with its traditions and sense of staff collegiality as the focus for learning? How will schools maintain/retain a sense of ethos/loyalty if staff can be deployed across the authority? I know I am biased-I work in an independent where the school rather than the authority-is the focus for everything. I am trying to imagine the up- and downside of this aspect of your proposals; I suppose it is rather similar to some of the learning communities in bigger authorities or the old TVEI consortia. Still, there are times when it is better to be radical than merely to tinker; as I heard Norman Drummond say of leaders and leadership: “be brave, be bold, be broad”!

By: Allsorts

Allsorts — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:50:15 +0000

Loads of food for thought there Don, and expressed as a considered response to learner’s needs.

PS On a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t help but smile @
“ensuring that teaching staff spend the majority of their teaching time working with a “horizontal” level of work.”
Dorothy

By: Neil WInton

Neil WInton — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:01:48 +0000

Can I add to the congratulations on your new appointment! I’d heard that you were going for the post but the previous comment is the first I’d heard that you’d been successful.

I think you are about to make EL a phenomenal place to learn in… even a fraction of the proposals you’ve made have the potential to bring about real change for the better… taken together, they are a bold and brave statement of intent that anything less than excellence is not good enough. Bravo!

More than anything, I believe it is your own willingness to listen and learn from so many quarters that must help to inform and model the learners that you hope to encourage in EL. You will, as you know, face much opposition to such a radical overhaul… but as Adam has already said, AcfE is an opportunity not to be missed and I believe it needs a new vision to best serve the needs of those we have a responsibility to prepare for the future.

Best wishes, and along with many others, I look forward to reading about your (and EL’s) journey.

By: Adam Sutcliffe

Adam Sutcliffe — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:32:33 +0000

Firstly, congratulations on your appointment.

Secondly, this is a refreshing wind of change coming from someone who is in position to attempt this change. I firmly believe ACfE is an opportunity not to be missed. Too many schools seem to think it is a opportunity for S3 to sit SG exams and that’s it. We need forward thinking administrators prepared to take the bull by the horns, publish their ideas and let the conversation flow.
I for one like the idea of a personal contract and I think the idea of a vertical learning group is fantastic, allowing older students to help the learning of the younger ones, because (in theory) they know how to get around the problems facing the younger students.
Youngsters of 14 should be able to access the world of work, we all know those students who just do not want to be in school and already know what they want to do further down the line.
I think more and more we need to emphasise the learning of learning. This is such a transferable skill and once embedded from an early age any subject can be accessed.
Not sure about the deployment of teachers across a county wide campus, mainly because Aberdeenshire is such a massive county that a lot of travelling would devalue the idea.
The idea of courses for adults to help support their kid’s learning (lead by teachers of same subject area?) is excellent, presuming of course it forms part of the normal workload.
Would you envisage ASN pupils to be taught apart from mainstream?
Do you think such a set up would reduce the montains of foem filling and paperwork currently required?

I will leave my comment there. These are simply my initial reactions on reading your post. Thank you and bravo for some outstanding thought.