Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

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 [...]

 I’ll not kid on here - I first heard about attachment theory just a few months ago and then followed this up with a concrete example of it being put into practice at Lothian Villa.  What follows is my layman’s understanding of what it means and how we might benefit from it in East Lothian.
Ask a [...]

 “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) [...]

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 [...]

 
“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 [...]

 
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 [...]

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 [...]

 
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 [...]

 
I attended two separate events today which demonstrated the professional community we are building in East Lothian.
The first of these was a cluster in-service day at Preston Lodge High School. The theme for the day was A Curriculum for Excellence and it was great to see teachers working together from so many backgrounds.
I was privileged [...]

 I’ve been working on a draft for my next TESS article.  I’d welcome comments and suggestions for improvement:  
One of the best parts of my job is that I get to observe the learning and teaching process in all of our schools. One of the things that I’ve been struck by during my visits is [...]