On our blog we will feature guest ‘posters’. Here Ollie Bray gives us his thoughts on the 1st day at the Summer School.

Day one of the first Scottish International Summer School got off to a good start at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. The Chair for Day one was Ewan Aitken, the former leader of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Ewan spoke to the conference about his own feelings on leadership with a particular context on school and education leadership. Ewan emphasised the importance of all leaders ‘giving themselves time to think’.

The second presentation of the day was from Keir Bloomer, the former Chief Executive of Clackmannanshire Council. As always Keir was thought provoking and at times controversial. He spoke passionately about how we needed to ‘re-brand and re-model’ education in the new and emerging global climate.

After lunch Professor Gronn from the university of Glasgow gave a theoretical insight into distributed leadership. The presentation included a comprehensive references and case study examples of distributive leadership in practice from Australia and New Zealand. One of the questions emerging from the presentation was “Is there a link between being an effective distributed leader and emotional intelligence?”

The final presentation of the day outlined some of the work of Aberdeen University on their ‘Scottish Teachers for a New Era’ Programme. The programme is a re-modelling of the traditional B Ed primary route. Lynne Shiach led the presentation and she was assisted by some of her second year students. The enthusiasm of the three students that had been participating in the scheme was infectious and they had obviously benefited a huge amount from the revised programme. The revised programme not only focused on whom we are teaching and what we are teaching but there is also a large emphasis on ‘who we are as teachers’.

Ewan Aitkin skilfully summed up the day returning to his earlier observation that all leaders need to take the time to think if they wish to be truly effective.

Categories: CPD Scotland, CPD guests, Leadership