“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 [...]
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Over the last 6 weeks I’ve been doing two jobs - the Head of Education and Director of Education and Children’s Services. We appointed my successor this week in the form of Maureen Jobson, who is the Manager of our Learning and Teaching Team. Maureen is everything I’m not - methodical, practical and reliable. She [...]
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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 [...]
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I had a very enjoyable vist this week to Preston Lodge High School to observe five S1 pupils being taught a science lesson. Amy, Sean Michael, Steven, Dale and Jade showed tremendous understanding and application, and were fortunate to be taught by a great teacher in Gillian Binnie, supported by Mandy Reid. The class overcame [...]
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As ever Ewan MacIntosh is worth watching.
He’s currently working in New Zealand - (sshh - don’t mention the rugby) - but still found the time to put up a post about Berkley University placing lectures on YouTube
It’s just one small step from here to think about putting up entire courses on the web for East Lothian [...]
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I’ve been working on a draft for my next TESS article. I’d welcome comments and suggestions for improvement:
One of the best parts of my job is that I get to observe the learning and teaching process in all of our schools. One of the things that I’ve been struck by during my visits is [...]
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One of the goals we often espouse in education is to help children reach their potential.
Perhaps our greatest problem is that we actually think that potential has a limit!!!
If you have 11 minutes to spare watch these videos and take some time to think about how often you have used the phrase - “I want [...]
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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 [...]
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If learners aren’t paying attention they can’t learn. If they are being distracted by others in the class they can’t learn. It follows that for learning to take place then there must be a purposeful and focused environment in the classroom.
I was talking with a couple of colleagues this week about classroom behaviour and how it [...]
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I was invited to address the members of East Lothian Children’s Panel this evening. We spoke for 90 minutes about how we approach attendance, exclusions and inclusion in our schools.
A key theme which emerged in the course of the evening is the perception that there are still issues to do with consistency between how our schools approach each [...]
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