Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

One of the things I really enjoy about my post is the extent of joint working with colleagues from health, police, voluntary sector, children’s social work and other organisations and groups with a common interest in improving services to children and families.  This form of joint working can be characterised as “integrated service delivery” 
Yet integrated service delivery leads [...]

I’m attending the Association of Directors of Social Work conference in Crieff.
One the key themes emerging is that of personalisation of services to users. The social work field is light years ahead of education in terms of using a mixed economy system for delivering services, by commissioning others from the private and voluntary sector to [...]

We held a very successful “Corporate Parenting” Conference today at the Marine Hotel, North Berwick. .
Adam Ingram MSP , Minister for Children and Early Years gave a  well informed and committed keynote address and emphasised the need for us to collectively address the needs of Looked After and Accommodated Children and to focus upon the improving [...]

 
“You never leave the villa” - so said Andy Thorpe, manager of the Lothian Villa, a residential home for challenging and vulnerable teenagers in East Lothian. I was privileged to visit the “Villa” a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write up my experiences since that time.
What Andy means by “You never leave [...]

 
I’ve become a parent again!!!!
One of the most exciting aspects of my new job is that I intend to take on the role of Education Champion for Looked After and Accommodated Children in East Lothian. The reality of the educational outcomes of this group of children in Scotland is is quite shameful:

The attendance of children [...]

 
I was invited to a COPS meeting this afternoon.  No they hadn’t eventually caught up with me! COPS is a an acronym for Co-ordinators of Pupil Support.
This group meets up five times a year to share practice and highlight common areas of concern.  I was invited to take part in a discussion about the role [...]

I came across this interesting model of children’s services at yesterday’s conference.
Christine Davies talked us through the development of Integrated Children’s and Young People’s Services in Telford and Wrekin.
Certainly worth a read.

 
I’m just back from the Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES) annual conference which was held in Aviemore.
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for Education and Lifelong Learning, was speaking and was stressing the importance of everyone involved in education working together, particularly in the new world of local outcome agreements.
As she was speaking [...]

 
A teacher said to me last week that we (in education) seem to have to play, more and more, the role of parents as well as educators.  I had to point out to this person that that is exactly what we have to do - especially for some of the most vulnerable children in our communities. 
One of the [...]

At the Musselburgh Cluster meeting today we discussed our strategy for supporting the lowest attaining 20% of students in East Lothian.
We had a very stimulating debate about this issue and a number of questions emerged:
1. Is there a difference between the lowest attaining and those with the lowest ability?
We thought there was - it is possible [...]