Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

Got a bit of a second wind today, thanks to the enthusiasm of others surrounding the alternative curriculum project.  Had a productive (very early croissants and coffee!) meeting this morning to (almost) finalise the programme for January to June 2007.  

We have had a tremendous commitment from the outside agencies involved and they have put forward both staffing and funding to help make it happen.  I am really hopeful that we can have this commitment matched in some way from the education side.  We also decided to look at making some bids to other sources for funding to help with the initial phase, although one of the criteria is that we have to be sustainble so we have to be careful about being reliant on short term sources of money. 

When I met with Lesley Gillies of Dunbar Grammar on Wednesday she gave me inumerable tips and solutions to some of the issues Dunbar have faced.  Their model is somewhat different to what we are proposing at the moment in that she has two Pupil Support staff who are basically full-time on the programme.  This is a fantastic resource and means the programme is more flexible than it otherwise might be.  I learned a great deal from Lesley.

Yesterday I had a fruitful meeting with one of the directors of ELCAP, Danny Harvie.  We are hopefully going to be setting up a partnership with them in the school, with youngsters having the opportunity to gain work experience in a social care setting.  We also see this as an opportunity to make links in the community and to challenge perceptions of what it means to be mentally or physically handicapped or to have a mental health problem by having speakers come into the school to discuss issues with the youngsters.

I explored the possibility of using Skillforce as part of our alternative curriculum programme when I met with Andy Bruce this morning.  Trinity Academy have an agreement with Skillforce to provide a comlpete alternative curriculum provision in third and fourth year, as well as doing work further up and down the school, most notably around primary 7/S1 transition.  It’s not inexpensive, the equivalent probably of employing two principal teachers (point 2) but they do seem to be providing an excellent service.  My gut feeling is however that it would be difficult to make it sustainable.

I had a very real reminder today of how important it is for some of our youngsters to have an alternative to the current model.  I was working with a youngster who is finding it particularly difficult to cope with the demands of a full academic curriculum as well as deal with his own ‘issues’ and consequently things are breaking down around the school. It helped me focus my attention on where this is actually going to ‘count’.

Finally, I think we have to find a more appropriate name than Alternative Curriculum.  Far too divisive I think.  Suggestions welcome.