Posted in personal on Aug 3rd, 2008 7 Comments »
Our eldest boy (he’s the one launching himself into the darkness!!) returned from Australia on Friday. I know this sounds like a terrible cliche but he did leave as a boy and has returned a man.
I’m now more convinced than ever of the value of a gap year experience - or at least something before [...]
Posted in personal on Jun 28th, 2008 2 Comments »
Je suis en vacances pour les deux semaines suivantes.
Posted in personal on Jun 18th, 2008 No Comments »
Our son - Doug - is currently out in Australia playing rugby and generally having a tremendous time (I’m not really envious!). In the past week he’s been staying with Mark Walker’s family in Melbourne.
I met Mark out in Harvard last summer and we struck up a great rapport. He’s doing some very innovative work at Elsterwick Primary [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 13th, 2008 4 Comments »
Our eldest son is out in Australia playing rugby for Nelson Bay - which is just North of Sydney - and is having a great time.
He has received an incredible welcome and Nelson Bay seems to be a beautiful place.
We are sorely tempted to try to get out to visit him during the summer but it [...]
Posted in Culture change, Inclusion, Leadership, Positivity, Power/influence, Unconditional Positive Regard, personal on Apr 12th, 2008 5 Comments »
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 [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 12th, 2008 2 Comments »
We visited a gallery this morning and came across this sculpture entitled “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” by Susan MacInnes.
We’d been keen on the piece before and when we saw it again this morning made a decision to purchase. We used the Scottish Arts Council “own art” scheme which allows you to pay it off [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 3rd, 2008 4 Comments »
Douglas, our eldest son, set off yesterday for Australia. He’s going to be playing rugby in Nelson Bay, which is a couple of hours North of Sydney.
Douglas is on the right with his Granny and his brother Lewis.
We saw him off with mixed emotions - we won’t see him again for nearly five months but the opportunity [...]
Posted in personal on Mar 16th, 2008 5 Comments »
“Zuzana in Paris Studio by Hynek Martinec”
We visited the Scottish National portrait Gallery yesterday and viewed the BP Portrait Award 2007 exhibition. I couldn’t get this painting out of my mind - yes it’s a painting!
We used to think of photographs as being real and paintings to be representations of reality. But with the likes of [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Learning and teaching, Parental Involvement, Personal Lessons, personal on Feb 23rd, 2008 5 Comments »
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 [...]
Posted in personal on Feb 18th, 2008 9 Comments »
Both of our sons are heading off to Austrialia and New Zealand to play rugby this summer, before going on to university in the Autumn, so we have been looking for a family holiday before they set off.
The decision was sealed today and we’re off to New York next Thursday for a three night stay in [...]