“THEM” Vs “US”
I reckon one of the greatest challenges facing Scottish education is the way in which people use the third person plural in a negative sense.
Listen to any conversation about education and very soon “they” will emerge as the problem. So teachers will talk about “them” (management), management will talk about “them” (teachers and the local authority) [...]
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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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Posted in Positivity on Feb 10th, 2008 1 Comment »
Once upon a time I was told a story by Alastair Torrance - another of my former colleagues from Selkirk High School. Alastair told me about A Warm and Fuzzy Tale - you need to read it! The basic idea is that we all have an endless supply of “Warm Fuzzies” to give to other [...]
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One of the things that schools sometimes fail to appreciate is just how intimidating they can be, especially secondary schools. We all have our memories of school, and for those of us in the teaching profession they are, for the most part, likely to be positive recollections. Yet when you speak to some parents you [...]
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Posted in Positivity on Dec 23rd, 2007 2 Comments »
Schools are fun places. Ollie Bray’s Rock Star video from Musselburgh Grammar School proves my point.
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Ann McLanachan, until recently, Headteacher at Longniddry Primary School, East Lothian, receiving her award for Lifetime Acheivement at the 2006 awards ceremony.
The Scottish Education Awards aim to celebrate the hard work and success taking place in Scottish education.
Nominations will close at 5 pm on Friday 22 February and the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 13 June at [...]
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I visited Sanderson’s Wynd Primary School in Tranent this morning.
In the course of a very enjoyable visit where I observed a number of classes and talked with Headteacher Fiona Waddell and some of her staff about how they create a purposeful learning environment. The school is not without its challenging pupils but what struck me was [...]
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It’s one of the real benefits of keeping a Learning Log that you can read what other people think about your opinions.
And so it was tonight when I came across a comment on Rob Hill’s blog about a post I’d written on Sunday about Schooling for the Future where Rob suggested that I was being unusually pessimistic about [...]
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Unless you’ve been there I don’t think it’s possible to imagine the anxiety which teachers, principal teachers and head teachers experience at the time Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) results are published.
I’ve been in there in all three roles and now in my wider role as Head of Education.
Over my 27 years in the business I’ve experienced [...]
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