Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

The challenge presented by the financial situation as set out in my last post should focus the mind of any of us involved in public service.  Nevertheless, the temptation will always be to approach any problem - regardless of how potentially devastating that problem might be - from the point of view of self-interest (and not necessarily [...]

Net Local Authority Revenue Expenditure by Service (%)
The Educational Institute of Scotland is running a campaign against any budget cuts in Scottish Education.
A march was held in Glasgow today at which thousands of teachers, parents and lecturers joined to protest against any education budget reductions under the banner “why must our children pay?”
As a teacher and passionate [...]

“It’s a Postcode Lottery” is a recurring term used to highlight any difference in provision of services between one area and another. 
The underlying assumption in all such cases is that this ”lottery” is unfair and that services should not be dependent upon the ”luck” of where one happens to live, i.e. they should be exactly the same throughout the country.  I’d [...]

Since coming into my post as Head of Education in 2005 and subsequently as Director of Education and Children’s Services I’ve tried to uphold my commitment to conduct our business in an open, honest and transparent manner.  And so it was in that spirit that I met a group of parents in early December 2009 who represented [...]

 
One of the key findings of the OECD report on Quality and Equity of Scottish Education was that our system does not promote innovation and that there is very little diversity of schooling in Scotland. They identified the cause of this rigidity as a lack of autonomy - and what I would describe as an acceptance by all [...]

It was  Cyril Northcote who came up with the adage known as Parkinson’s Law which appeared as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
I’ve been thinking about this a great deal in recent meetings with teachers (and managers) who complain that [...]

 
I’ve been approached by quite a few people over the last couple of weeks about our ideas relating to Community Ownership of Schools.
I thought it might help to gather together in one place a number of related posts which provide an insight into the evolution of this idea and the underpinning rationale.
The first point to [...]

One of the things I really enjoy about my post is the extent of joint working with colleagues from health, police, voluntary sector, children’s social work and other organisations and groups with a common interest in improving services to children and families.  This form of joint working can be characterised as “integrated service delivery” 
Yet integrated service delivery leads [...]

 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2941559903/
A recurring theme in discussions with colleagues about the implementation of A Curriculum for Excellence has been the need to keep a strong focus on promoting a culture of trust in the professionalism of teachers.
All too often people in positions such as mine can focus upon the technical elements of implementation and see it a [...]

 
A couple of months ago I joined my colleagues on the Leadership Team of East Lothian Council on a weekend course entitled “The Innerwick Experience”. The Leadership Team is made up of: all Heads of Service, e.g. Head of Education, Head of ICT and Finance, etc; the four Directors - Finance; Planning; Community Services; and Education and Children’s Services [...]