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Scottish Executive Survey

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Brian Cunningham

Thursday 05 October 2006

I met with Ewan McIntosh at lunchtime. When I was at the GLOW mentors meeting last week I had mentioned, in general conversation, that our Chemistry department was starting up a Chemistry club. He came up with all kinds of suggestions and ideas with regard to new media/multimedia so I said I would mention some of them when I got back to school. I asked the teachers involved what they thought and we all had a meeting. The staff came up with some cracking ideas, so watch this space and see what happens !!!!!

This afternoon I received a report from the Scottish Executive Education Department that contains a national survey carried out with regard to CPD and related activities for technical support staff. All 32 local authorities were contacted and asked to complete the survey form. In authorities where there was a central technical support team, meetings were arranged and heads of technician services were interviewed. In local authorities with no central service an appropriate member of HQ staff of sufficient experience was identified and interviewed or issued with a survey form to complete.

In cases where neither of the above scenarios existed an experienced school based technician was asked to complete the form. With regard to East Lothian we didnt fall into either of the first two catagories so I tried to fill in as much of the data as I could but couldn’t find out any information regarding recruitment policy, formulae for staffing levels, levels of technical support in primaries or any information as to who is actually in charge of the technician service in East Lothian. In the end 30 councils fully or partially completed the survey forms.

I had a quick scan through the interim report and it seems that many councils are on the ball, others have let things slide since local government reorganisation in 1996 and some have left their technician services to languish in no mans land, unsure of whose in charge and what they should be doing. I will read through the more detailed report and no doubt some of the issues that it raises will appear as posts here very shortly.

Comments

Vacuum

Brian

Friday 06 October 2006

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step - Lao Tzu

I am just trying to take that first step with regard to reform of the technicians service in ELC

Vacuum

Brian

Friday 06 October 2006

Well Vacuum could be one word for it. I truly do not know who is resposible for the service in East Lothian. Some managers believe it is run by Edinburgh Council who have a central technicians service, but I can assure you that they have confirmed that they have have no jurisdiction over us.
When I was at the national technicians conference last year I was approached by a senior member of the educational scientific community who asked me just what was going on in the Lothians as it had been noted at executive level that something was badly amiss. I had to honestly tell them that I just didnt know.
There should be an alarm bell ringing somewhere, especially regarding recruitment, but on whose desk it is on is a total mystery to me.
All I really want is for East Lothian to make the best use of its excellent support staff, and to provide training and CPD oppertunities for them to be able to provide a well informed and efficent 21st century service to the schools in the authority.

Managing

Ewan

Thursday 05 October 2006

Managers help manage which, in its most basic level, is all about letting staff manage to do the job. In East Lothian's case I do wonder how technicians can truly manage to do their job if there's no-one setting the bar for the next leap forward. Am I being naive or is there a leadership vacuum in the way that the service is run here?

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