Laurie O’Donnell

I was shocked and devastated and to hear that Tony van der Kuyl died on Thursday afternoon. Although he had been ill for a few short months he was really positive and up for a fight to win back his good health - exactly as anyone who knew him would expect. Last time I […]

This is my first attempt to pick out some of what I have done and to look ahead to next week. Let’s give it a try and see how it evolves.
Some stuff from last week
Straighforward week after spending so much time in London the previous week - 3 days in Glasgow and 2 in Dundee.
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Yesterday afternoon the OECD Report was discussed in the Scottish Parliament.
The full transcript makes interesting reading. There is the odd lapse into political point scoring (as you would expect in any democratic parliament). My reading of what was said by our MSPs is that it was generally a thoughtful and constructive debate around the main […]

I was interviewed last week by Nicola More of White Light Media - the company that does the journalism, design etc for our award winning Connected magazine. The theme was Glow and Nicola asked me some questions that had been rasied by our readers. The full text will appear within our ConnectedLive site but for […]

Well I have managed 61 posts over the last 15 months - getting close to one a week. Much better than I managed the first time round with my blog back in 2005. Some weeks and months have been better than others but I seem to have established the habit.
Key turning points in getting my […]

If the findings of the OECD report are generally accepted then the main implication for LTS lies around the development of the curriculum. I remember reading a policy document many years ago (must dig it out, but I think it was from HMI) which made the claim that the main cause of indiscipline/disruption in school […]

I spend much last week at the BETT Show in London. It’s hard to believe that it is more than a year since I posted prior to my visit to BETT 2007.
This year I managed to have good old trawl through the exhibition. I am always on the lookout for something that I have […]

National priorities funding through local government compacts
1. Develop a funded national innovation plan
2. Link Schools of Ambition closely into 1.
3. Extend the Scottish Survey of Achievement to all children and make the results against targets the basis of negotiations over resources between central and local government
Greater school autonomy […]

This is a really important document and an essential read for anyone interested in an external perspective on how Scotland’s schools are doing.
I read it over the holidays and wanted to capture it for my learning log by doing three things: 1. Try to summarise the key points; 2. Pick out the recommendations and; […]