8.30-9.45 Association of Head Teachers Scotland – met with Donald McGillivray and David Scott. Fairly extensive agenda – budget; additional non-contact time; equity between primary and secondary; development plan guidelines; cluster working paper – we sorted out the concern about Collective Responsibility, the concern was what happened if a there was a competence issue in another school – would the other HTs have to sort ot out – I made it clear that it is my job to tackle any competence isues with Headteachers. I see collective responsibility as being focused well above the line of competence.
2.00-4.00 Employee Development and Review meeting with Donald McGillivray
10.00-12.00 Primary/ Nursery Executive meeting – covered many of the points from my prevous meeting. I was delighted by the progress we made on a number of issues – particularly when we agreed the new pupil absence guidelines which I'll circulate to schools next week. I used the Kipling principle on the policy – not Mr Kipling!. Rudyard Kipling used to write a story and then put in a drawer – a couple of months later he would take it out and strip out all of the extraneous parts – then he'd put it back in the drawer – another couple of months would pass and he'd repeat the process. The end result was a tight and polished piece of work. When I first drafted the gudelines it was 8 pages long – by just taking a bit longer and stripping out everything that wasn't pertinent I got it down to two pages. I'll try to use the "Kipling process" from now on!!
12.00-1.30 Early Years and Childcare Partnership meeting – I had to respond to queries about the reduction in budgets and also go over our new service improvement plan update – I've asked the group to look for areas where we could highlight Early years. they were very gentle with me.
2.00-4.00 Employee Development and Review meeting with Donald McGillivray
4.00pm meeting cancelled – worked at my desk until 6.30 – almost enjoyable
7.00-8.30 Dunbar Cluster School Boards meeting. I arrived a bit early and had a quick walk round the school. I left a message on Michael Hill's whiteboard (unfortunately he phoned the office the next day to point out that I'd used a permanent marker –Doh!!!!