I attended the
Virtual Staff College Summer School on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The theme of the school was: Leadership in a Changing Environment.

The course was aimed at senior officers working in the delivery of local authority education and children's services. It gave us the chance to meet, share practice and reflect on the challanges and solutions cunnrtly facing those of us who work in such positions.

I really enjoyed the Summer School and it must rank as one of the best forms of personal development that I've ever experienced. I was certainly challenged and in the course of the three days I experienced something of a transformation in my thinking about my role and its contribution to developing education and children's services in East Lothian.

The last task we were given was to reflect upon what we would be taking away from the event – these were mine:

1. Much clearer about my future role as a leader in developing the delivery of integrated children's services.

2. Confirmed my belief that we should use shared quality indicators for all agencies involved in children's services as a lever for change.

3. That we should be much more proactive within the corporate setting in terms of the future model of integrated children's services.

4. That we should develop models of funding which drives decision making down to a local level.

5. That we should have faith in the need for a new model and the fact that it will benefit children.

I'll put up a number of posts in the next few days to eleborate on the background to some of these ideas.