Posted in Accountability, Culture change, Ideas, Leadership, Leadership Dilemmas, Management, Partnerships, Planning, Policy, Power/influence, Public Services, TESS, professionalism on Jun 8th, 2008 5 Comments »
Every educational leader, regardless of position, has to wrestle with the powerful temptation to intervene or to meddle in the business of those whom they manage. The logic is fairly simple - “I’m being paid to manage and to be accountable for the work of others - so it’s reasonable that I take action in order […]
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It’s that time of year when the consequences of trying to deliver our service within the available budget require difficult decisions to be made.
Maybe I’m just kidding myself but I still believe passionately in the value of education, that teaching and learning is at the core of what we do, and that caring for kids […]
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“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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It was George H.W. Bush (the father of George W. Bush) who in 1987 responded to the suggestion that he turn his attention from short-term campaign objectives and look to the longer term by saying, “Oh, the vision thing”. I wonder sometimes if many of us in Scottish education suffer from Bush’s same discomfort with […]
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Posted in Leadership on Apr 4th, 2008 1 Comment »
During our weekend in Paris we sat at a corner cafe and watched the Paris police close off the streets to allow a protest march to take place.
There was no warning just a policeman who walked into the middle of the street and stopped all traffic from entering the area. Chaos ensued as cars and […]
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Posted in Leadership on Feb 19th, 2008 2 Comments »
One of the best Headteachers I’ve ever encountered was Norman Roxburgh, Headteacher at Earlston High School for nearly 20 years. Norman retained his enthusiasm, commitment and passion for learning and teaching throughout his career. I learned many things from Norman and so I was delighted to see his recent contribution to TESS. There are many […]
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Posted in Ideas, Leadership on Jan 30th, 2008 9 Comments »
Norman Drummond led a wonderful session this morning at our Headteachers’ Conference. Today’s theme was “Developing a Coaching Culture in East Lothian”. Norman is an exceptional presenter and his focus on co-coaching seemed to resonate with many of my colleagues.
Norman has an uncanny knack of helping people to unlock their own hopes and ambitions, and getting them […]
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No posts for over a week but life has been something of a blur.
I’m probably earning my corn at the moment with some major challenges facing us in relation to efficiency savings having to be made in the education budget. Every meeting and piece of correspondence seems to be connected to this issue and I’ve got 100 […]
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The concordat agreed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government sets out how funding and outcome agreements will operate over the next three years.
The document is worth reading on a number of counts but it’s the section relating to efficiency savings that perhaps sets out the greatest challenge for education.
The text reads […]
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