Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

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 [...]

One of the conclusions I’ve gradually come to over the years is that in order to facilitate real change in any system it’s necessary to change the landscape.  It’s come to me slowly and for all that I believe that focusing upon cultural change is still fundamentally the correct route to improvement - I’ve also [...]

Perhaps the time is right to explore alternative delivery models for education where we shift our thinking from people being users or consumers, to being participants? Ironically there is much to learn from our Scottish educational heritage as we consider our future.
The shift from School Boards to Parent Councils - which surely must be one [...]

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 [...]

Does a teacher need to like all children in order to be an effective teacher? 
The dictionary definition of the verb to “like”  is essentially  to display a favourable opinion or disposition towards a thing – in this case children.  Yet in conversations with teachers throughout my career I’ve met with resistance to the notion of [...]

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 [...]

 
The oft-repeated mantra for managing change in education is “evolution, not revolution”.  Such a strategy takes account of the sensitivities involved whenever change is proposed and recognises the tacit (and explicit) resistance to change that can exist within any large organisation. The accepted logic is that we make change gradually and incrementally by building upon [...]

 
This is a copy of the article which was recently published in TESS. It was based on the following post and comments.
Ever since I started teaching, I’ve been frustrated with the idea of “Christmas leavers”.The school leaving age regulations state: “Children may leave school once they reach their statutory school leaving date; this is dependent on date of [...]

 
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 [...]

 
I’ll be submitting this article for publication to TESS later this week. I’m indebted to Mothersoup for contributing her thoughts on this topic. Does it hit the spot?
In a peculiar way there is a possibility that this article may offend, in equal measure, both the teaching profession and the parental body. I make no apologies if this is the case.
I believe [...]