TFT

I’d like to challenge those who denigrate those of us who decide to work in the public sector. I think the vast majority of people I work with are driven by a sense of service to the public good, i.e. public service!! I find it offensive when suggestions are made that there is something lazy and complacent about those of us in public service. I’d challenge anyone to show how our practice is inferior to “private” sector work. I would never talk down the challenges facing those in working in the private sector – why is it acceptable the other way round? What do you think?

This morning saw the first
Admin’ Conference. Over 130 administrative support staff from schools and the department attanded a full programme. The event had had been orgainsed by Gillian Reilly and Richard Parker and reps from each of the clusters. Alan Blackie opened the event with a welcome and I followed up with a brief overview of our vision for education in East Lothian. I made the following points:

1. I started off by reinforcing the focus of our all our jobs, i.e. to make a positive difference to children’s life chances. This is the unifying factor for all 1300 members of the education department and I don’t think we can ever over-emphasise it.

2. I then mentioned the idea of trust and the fact that we know that most people just want to their jobs as well as possible. We want to establish a culture in all our schools to enable this.

3. I emphasised that the only difference between me (Head of Education) and any admin’; support member of staff is only in terms of accountablity and responsibility. Aside from these factors we are members of the same taeam and on the same level – there is no place in East Lothian for any notion of different status groups – I’m committed to challenging this notion wherever it arises – there are occasions when some members of staff (sometimes because they are under pressure) do not treat admin’ staff with the respect they deserve.

4. A lot of admin’ duties include the submission of data and infromation. I tried to explain how important this is to us if we are to “know” our schools and be able to measure progress.

TFT

5. I concluded by challenging those who denigrate those of us who decide to work in the public sector. I think the vast majority of people I work with are driven by a sense of service to the public good, i.e. public service!! I find it offensive when suggestions are made that there is something lazy and complacent about those of us in public service. I’d challenge anyone to show how our practice is inferior to “private” sector work. I would never talk down the challenges facing those in working in the private sector – why is it acceptable the other way round? What do you think?

The rest of the morning was taken up by seminars and presentations – I must mention
Elizabeth Clark who spoke to us about communication – what a performance!! The feedback for the event seemed very positive.

From there to speak to the East Lothian Music Instructors. I wanted to let them know how much we value their work but also to explore anything we might do to improve their effectiveness. we came up with anumber of ideas and I'll be trying to take them forwards over the next few months.

Then caught the feedback session for all staff at Preston Lodge High School about Accessibility. I thought the staff made a number of valid points but the points which I made
yesterday would still apear to be valid.