Laurie O’Donnell

I had an interesting conversation recently with a friend who is a teacher. It started with her saying that the difference between us is that I am ambitious and she is not. My response was that it is impossible to be in education and without being ambitious – or rather it should be impossible.

She had of course linked the concept of ambition exclusively to the practice of seeking a promoted post in a school – ambition as the desire for personal power and status rather than as the desire to make a difference.

I know for a fact that she wants the children in her class to be successful and for her school to thrive – in many ways she is an exemplar of the ambitious teacher, she just doesn’t want anything to do with what she sees as the hassles of being a school manager. [There is a major problem for the education system if the best teachers associate the role of promoted staff with bureaucracy and fire fighting rather than leading learning. A topic for another post?]

Anyway we agreed that we are both ambitious for children and young people. The only real difference was where we had decided we could make the biggest difference and contribute the most to achieving success. She has decided that working directly with learners is where she can make the biggest impact. My role is to make sure she gets the best possible advice, support and resources that LTS can provide.

The highlight of last week was having my 15 year old daughter on work experience with me. Apart from exposing her to a couple of very long days commuting between Broughty Ferry and Glasgow I think she really enjoyed it (but probably not half as much as I did). Her week included:

* Meeting my boss, LTS Chief Executive Bernard McLeary to get an overview of the work of LTS.
* Software testing/quality assurance for a virtual work experience product we are working on with Careers Scotland (now part of Skills Development Scotland).
* Researching, writing and publishing news items on the LTS Online Service [her favourite task].
* Getting a preview of some of the functionality of Glow [she takes the functionality for granted as you would expect].
* Attending a conference ‘Public Sector Reform’ in Edinburgh – setting up an LTS stand, handing out the Glow dvd and listening to a keynote speech by Cabinet Secretary John Swinney [she also managed to fit in some shopping on Princes Street on the way home and was delighted].
* Working with Derek Robertson in the Dundee LTS Consolarium.
* Shadowing my PA Val Bell to get an understanding of the LTS back office and the importance of good systems and processes – the ones that help people to be effective in their roles.

I also thought she got lots more in terms of being part of a workplace environment, being treated as an adult, being given responsibility for getting things done on her own, understanding some of the disciplines (and flexibilities) of work compared to school, seeing people working in teams, seeing people getting on with their work because they are self-motivated rather than because they are supervised … and much more.

At the end of the week she decided that she really didn’t want my job – ‘maybe a similar one but doing different stuff’. (Just as well because there isn’t a vacancy right now and she would be pretty good competition

Her pals have also been on their S3 work experience week and it’s been really interesting to hear what they have been doing: building a cardboard model of house (design/architect); cleaning out paint trays [must have more to this one] (printers); working as ski instructor in Holland [artificial slope of course] plus the usual suspects including office and shop work.

There is no doubt in my mind that work experience can help young people to make informed career decisions and should be part of the planned curriculum. It’s also important to remember that many young people already have a lot of work experience beyond school – from the early riser delivering newspapers, to the customer focussed shop workers and the unpaid young carers.

So what should high quality work experience offer? Well for a start it should:

* Help young people to look ahead to life beyond school and understand the pathways towards a ‘positive destination’
* Raise expectations and aspirations for all – beyond the already familiar roles of friends, neighbours and family.
* Provide insights into the world of work (including the benefits and drawbacks of being employed v being self-employed)
* Provide a perspective on what is good and bad about being at school
* Provide an incentive to ’stick in at school/college’ and continue to learn rather than escape early (to some extent this depends on how well the school can meet the needs of the young person) and of course
* Contribute to the development of the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence

Started yesterday morning by running to catch the 0636 train from Broughty Ferry to Glasgow and ended it back at Broughty Ferry station on the 1730 train from Edinburgh. Rather then feeling tired at the end of a busy day I felt full of energy and even more enthusiastic about the future of education than usual. It had been a pretty good day with lots of progress across a number of fronts – finances, documenting systems, project milestones, recruitment etc (important to get this stuff right if you want to deliver anything). I had also had a good 30 minute leadership coaching session with Martyn Sakol of ER Consulting just before lunch but the main source of my optimism was from spending time with one of my favourite thinkers on education – Stephen Heppell.

Stephen Heppell has worked with LTS for many years and was once a non-executive director of our predecessor body SCET (The Scottish Council for Educational Technology). He been doing some work for LTS over the last couple of years. We have been exploring a slightly different kind of consultancy with him and I think it has been working really well. Yesterday Stephen was a keynote speaker at a Scottish Government conference on Schools of Ambition in Edinburgh. Last week he spoke at an event on Urban Learning Spaces at The Lighthouse in Glasgow. He was a keynote speaker at SLF07 and worked for LTS over full the two days and he will be back at SLF08. He has visited schools in Dundee, East Renfrewshire and East Lothian (amongst others). He held workshops for the LTS Glow and Curriculum for Excellence teams; provided an input to LTS senior management meetings; he has drawn our leading technology for learning innovators (including Ewan McIntosh and Derek Robertson) into UK wide events to help promote the work we are doing in Scotland … and much more.

We get three main things from from this consultancy. First of all we get another external view on how we are doing from someone who has a great overview – Stephen works with more than 20 countries and is an adviser to government ministers across the world. Secondly, we get the opportunity to influence developments and educational innovation beyond the usual reach of LTS. Thirdly we are seen to be associated with a leading thinker who wants to be associated with and involved in developments in Scotland.

Yesterday I had a couple of hours with Stephen to discuss progress and to look ahead over the next few months. We talked about how to make the most of the time he has left on his contract and what we might do to draw together his findings and insights from his work in Scotland. Probably the best way would be through his blog.

My favourite quote from Stephen is that ‘education inoculates children against poverty’. Inspirational stuff and an important reminder of the crucial role of education in improving the life chances of all of our children and young people.

It’s 1645 and doing a blog post has been sitting on my to do list all day. I’m in Dundee on the 9th floor of City House and the view across the docks towards Broughty Ferry and the firth of Tay is really spectacular.

The highlight of last week was a presentation to a group of visitors from The Hanban (The Office of Chinese Language Council International). My CEO, Bernard, and our Head of International Education Prof Kay Livingston had recently visited China with The Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hislop and this was a follow-up meeting to look at what we are doing with technology. They were really impressed with Glow and the range of online support LTS provides for Scottish education (’shocked’ by the scale and ambition). Always great to have an international perspective as a reminder of the depth and breadth of our work.

I also had a meeting with Andrew Ramsay and Andrew Pert of JAB a company that started in the Abertay Uni incubator. Apart from specialising in recruitment for the oil and gas industry they have a line of products that support more general recruitment into industry which look very interesting in the context of careers education, work experience and enterprise.
As part of my role as an LTS corporate director I get the chance to meet with some of the senior players in Scottish education. Last Friday afternoon I met with Greg Dempster the dynamic General Secretary of the AHDS (trade union/professional association for many of Scotland’s primary heads and deputes). it’s great to get another perspective on the major developments in Scottish education, Curriculum for Excellence and Glow for example, and to get an external perspective on how LTS is doing in terms of supporting a key group of stakeholders.

The highlights for the rest of this week include a meeting with the international education guru Prof Steven Hepple in Edinburgh on Wednesday, some leadership development training and coaching for me (need as much as I get get) and a meeting with Steven Grier of Microsoft on Thursday. The week finishes with a visit to Madras College to meet the rector Ian Jones and an appointment at the University of Abertay to view the Computer Arts and Media honours exhibition.

Why would you ever want the weekend to come quick with a job like this (: