Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

As Head of Education I had a very clear and unambiguous role, i.e.  I was responsible for everything which came under the banner of education of children and young people from 3-18 years of age.  In my new role as Acting Director of Education and Children’s Services I have a much wider remit which includes the oversight of education but also gives me responsibility for the social care agenda for children and families in East Lothian.  I’m fortunate to have two outstanding heads of service in the form of Alan Ross, Head of Children’s Services, and Maureen Jobson, Acting Head of Education, both of whom have tremendous experience in their respective fields and can be relied upon to deal with the business of managing our £85 million budget whilst also contributing and shaping our strategic direction.

As Director I also have a major corporate responsibility as a member of the Board of Directors, alongside the other directors and the chief executive.  It’s this area that has perhaps the greatest potential for seeing a change in the way that we do things in East Lothian.  For example, we have agreed following our recent Managers Conference to revise our corporate plan to consider things in a much more thematic approach than simply from a service perspective.  For example, by considering the corporate parenting agenda as a theme we can begin consider how each of the discrete services can work together more effectively to provide a service which has a positive impact on the lives of Looked After and Accommodated Children - as opposed to one where the needs of the individual service took precedence over the needs of the child.

As a Director I also play a key role in the interface with the elected administration through working closely with the convener pf education and children’s services and other senior members of the administration in assisting them to fulfil their democratically elected agenda. The range and number of meetings can be a burden in terms of the time required but this is a necessary outcome of democratic accountability if we are to ensure that local government is properly managed and effectively delivered.

I’m also heavily involved in developing our strategy and practice in relation to the integration of various services to ensure that we work together effectively to meet the needs of young people and families.  As the chair of the Chief Officers group which includes senior representatives from education, police, health, the voluntary sector, children’s services and elected members we have begun to see a more connected approach to planning and the use of limited resources.  One of the exciting dimensions of this approach is our emerging strategic emphasis on Early Year and Parenting.  I have used this concept as a prism through which to reflect upon all aspects of our practice - that is not to say that everything that we do can be explicitly connected to early years or parenting - but that it’s a useful process through which we can begin to align resources and our practice to make substantive , long-term impact on the lives of children who otherwise would be trapped by the generational cycle of disengagement and poor outcomes which can afflict so many families.

In addition to these long term agendas there are of course the wide range of day-to-day issues which can land on my desk as the person with whom the “buck stops” - in many ways these are the bread and butter of my job but there does remain a danger that they can draw you into that cycle of “fixing things” - a phenomenon I recently wrote about - as opposed to considering the underlying issues which often underpin the day-to-day problems. This does require a disciplined approach if I am not to get lost in the detail and keep myself focused upon the bigger picture - which doesn’t always happen.  To that extent I think the role of this Learning Log is absolutely crucial as it’s the one of the few times in my working week when I have the freedom to explore ideas, reflect upon my work and consider the “opposite worlds” which might provide a more fruitful outcome than our current practice which can so dominate our lives.

Looking forwards I reckon I also have key role to sustain and support my colleagues who are dealing with issues at a face-to-face level with our customers - our senior leaders in schools and children’s services face innumerable challenges and do so in such positive and professional manner which explains why our respective services are of such a high standard. Nevertheless, such challenges inevitably take their toll which is why it is my intention in the coming year to work with my colleagues at a much closer personal level by regularly visiting them on site, attempting to understand their problems and offering my support both in a practical sense and in a longer-term strategic manner to change the way in which we do things.

I watched one of my favourite films this evening. Kes made a big impact on me when I first saw this film as 13 year-old. I remember laughing and crying in equal measure and it's interesting to reflect upon how much it might have influenced me throughout my career.

As a former PE teacher and Head Teacher I’d like to think I didn’t conform to these stereotypes - but perhaps I’m not best placed to judge.

Having to make difficult decisions is a key part of my job. Some of these decisions can often be unpopular - but I suppose that’s what I get paid for.

Every decision is usually associated with a variety of options which will usually have a number of distinct features, namely:

1. Consequences - each option will have positive and negative consequences directly associated with that course of action;
2. Emotional attachment - there are usually people who will have an positive emotional response to one of the options and a negative emotional response to another.
3. Evidence - most options will have associated evidence which can be used to either support or counter their effectiveness
4. Familiarity - options which have proved successful in the past.

My own decision making process tries to take account of the above but there is one other question which I ask myself whenever I have to make a decision: How does this choice of option relate to other features of our practice?

In this regard I was deeply influenced in the mid 90’s by systems thinking as described by Peter Senge which transformed my personal practice.

Prior to that time I tended to make decisions based on a rough amalgam of the four factors mentioned earlier but where I looked at individual decisions as discrete entities. The lesson I learned from Senge was to see “things” as being part of a system, or part of a whole and that no one decision is ever disconnected from another - particularly if you are trying to achieve an overall goal.

Lastly, there needs to be a moral/ethical filter associated with the decision making process and reference to my own personal integrity and honesty.

However, all other things being equal it’s the connectedness to other factors and their relationship to the overall goal which will have decisive effect on which option will be selected.

I felt enormously privileged today to be able to attend the Tapestry Conference in Glasgow to hear Jerome Bruner give a spellbinding performance.

For a man born in 1915 (93 years ago) he displayed humour, warmth and humility which would bely most men half his age - quite aside from his iconic intellect. In what was a wide ranging personal perspective on “A Curriculum for Excellence” he flitted through the decades, continents and historical fugures which whom he has engaged.

The strand to which he kept returning throughout his 50 minutes was the need for teachers to engage children in real thought by encouraging them to challenge and ask the tough questions - not just those which are part of the agreed syllabus.

He urged us to reflect upon controversy through a dialectic:

Dialectic (Greek) is controversy: the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments respectively advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses). The outcome of the exercise might not simply be the refutation of one of the relevant points of view, but a synthesis or combination of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue.

In contrast to Piaget, Bruner has always fought shy of the stages of development and believes that children of any age can participate in such dialogue to make meaning of their world.

However, it was his phrase “The dialectic of the possible worlds” which struck such a chord with me.  I suppose in my own small way I am trying through this Learning Log to explore opposite worlds.  Through the power of the web it can become a dialectic which leads - at the very least - to a transformation in the direction of my own dialogue.

Given my last post about the Dark Forces - I think it’s vitally important that we encourage and support teachers to explore opposite worlds in terms of their own practice and the nature of the curriculum and then participate in a professional dialogue about these possibilities. Without such a dialogue we are trapped by dependency culture created by centralised teaching programmes of study and curricular materials.

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 comes first, last and always.  Yet the responsibilities of the job mean that people see me as the person who applies formulae and budget limits without reference to the needs of their particular school. “Surely he can’t care about kids if he’s not going to give us x”.

I received a letter from a teacher this week which kind of encapsulated this when the teacher described how they were going to withdraw from all authority work because of the efficiency savings we are implementing. The argument basically ran along the lines that my integrity must be called into question if I was prepared to implement the required savings. This is a great shame because this particular teacher has a huge amount to offer their colleagues throughout the authority. 

Criticism like this hurts.  We all like to be popular.  Nobody likes to be charicatured as the unbending bureaucrat who will implement policy without reference to people’s feelings or needs.

I try - not always successfully - to rationalise this by telling myself that my key role in such circumstances is to treat people and schools with equity and respect.  We have a duty to the public to deliver a high quality service within the resources available. No one in East Lothian would pat me on the back a year from now if we had an overspend of £3 million. I’ve seen the consequences of such overspends at first hand and believe me - I’d rather suffer the slings and arrows over the managed savings we are implementing this year, than see all the gains we have made in East Lothian education over the last decade decimated by a budget crisis a year from now.

 Someone said to me today that some people found me scary. 

I laughed it off but it’s set me to wondering.

I really don’t like the idea that anyone would be put off coming to speak to me because they were scared. 

As ever Gill put it into context - “it depends what people mean by scary?”

I spent this morning at the Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh.

I first encountered Ansel Adam’s work a few years ago when I led a party of Dunbar Grammar School pupils to Yosemite Valley where we were “Following in John Muir’s Footsteps” - John Muir was a former pupil of Dunbar Grammar.

In what was a life changing experience I used to get up every morning at 5.30am and watch the sunrise over the Valley.  Looking at Adams’ photographs this morning I was taken back to these special moments. So how does a photographer manage to create such powerful images, which are so much more than photographs?

Perhaps it had something to do with Adams’ childhood and upbringing where he was an unconventional child who was probably dyslexic and hyperactive. His father recognised this and set about educating him at home and providing him with an incredibly rich range of experiences which shaped and nurtured the boy. Ansel Adams described this as follows:

“I often wonder at the strength and courage my father had in taking me out of the traditional school situation and providing me with these extraordinary learning experiences. I am certain he established the positive direction of my life that otherwise, could have been confused and chaotic. I trace who I am and the direction of my development to those years of growing up in our house on the dunes — propelled especially by an internal spark tenderly kept alive and glowing by my father.”

It’s revealing insights like these that confirm for me the need to recognise the importance of learning experiences which extend far beyond our existing perception of what “schooling” should be.

I was just about to write my evening’s post when I saw on the dashboard that I’d written 639 posts and had 1,151 comments on this log since it started in August 2006.

I just wanted to thank all those who have left comments over this  period and to say that they have had a significant impact upon how I approach my work.   

We recently went to see Joan Eardley’s exhibition at the National Gallery for Scotland.  I loved her paintings of Street Kids- see below. It reminded me of a photograph I took of my own kids when they were small.  I’ve played around with photoshop to try to recreate Eardley’s feel - and failed miserably.

It’s work like Eardley’s which reminds us why we are in the job.

You know that niggling feeling that you get when you’ve got an idea bubbling just underneath the surface and can’t quite express it - then again perhaps you don’t but it’s one with which I’m often afflicted.  It’s like that for me at the moment with this business of parents and children as customers.  I just can’t help feeling it would make such a difference to the quality of the service we provide - yet at the same time the very word customer sets up such a huge obstacle - no matter how you might try to redefine it as a concept in the 21st century.

I’ve played around with  suggesting that “customer” should be a metaphor for how we should treat parents and children - but this hits the same deep rooted problem of traditional perceptions of the relationship between provider and customer.

My niggle was rekindled yesterday when listening to Anna - a sixth year student from a school in the Scottish Highlands. She was very positive about most of her school experiences - but the recurring theme was how things could be so much better of the teachers and the school tried to look at the school experience through her eyes, and the eyes of her fellow students. To paraphrase what she was saying - and this is, of course, my interpretation - “school isn’t designed for her or her peers, but one where their needs are secondary to the interests of the school”. Yet when I asked a question to headteacher, who was also on the panel, if he was comfortable with the idea of children as customers he immediately replied that he wasn’t, to be quickly supported by Anna herself.

So that was it for me - here was someone pushing for a service which was directed towards her needs - a customer focussed service - but  for whom the very word customer put her off. So no more talk of customers - but what are the alternatives?

Guineapigmum likes the idea of partners - and I think a good school should be characterised by a partnership between teachers, parents and children - but it still doesn’t capture for me the idea of being “customer” (oops) facing. In other words it’s possible to enter into a partnership where you are primarily interested in fulfilling your own needs - and that by working in partnership with others we gain mutual benefit.  However, should schools only enter into partnership with parents and children to gain something for themselves? What if a parent doesn’t want to be a partner - do we treat them differently? What if a six year old child doesn’t want to be a partner - do we give up on them and wait until they do? 

As I’ve mentioned more than once on this Log my own father was a doctor.  He served his patients - their needs predominated.  He sacrificed his own needs to serve the needs of his community.  Sure he worked with his patients and they loved him for it - but it wasn’t a partnership.  I suppose the word here is “duty” - a duty to serve those who needed his services. They didn’t have a “duty” to work with him. 

For me it’s all to do with which way you are facing.  Do we start facing towards our own needs (inwards)? - or do we start facing towards those whom we serve (outwards)?

So that’s it - simple really!  We need to be an outward facing service where we seek to provide the highest quality service possible to those whom we serve - parents and their children (not customers) - and if that means that some of our own needs and wants have to be sacrificed to that end then so be it.