Monthly Archives: May 2013

Updates on School Business

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At the recent School Executive meeting on 20th May…various discussion points came up. Here are just a few of the headlines:

Partnership – Dee Torrance and Mary Andrew  reported a very successful meeting with Edinburgh Council on teacher education partnerships. I think we may be going for a Southeast Consortium Teacher Education Partnership  which involve our key authority partners in the consortium. There will be a Directors of Education meeting with myself in Moray House on June 14th as part of increased collaboration and partnerships.

Improving student representation  – the Executive discussed how we might improve on student representation on School committees, particularly School Policy and Resources Committee for next session. It was agreed that Shereen Benjamin as Director of Quality Assurance would consult colleagues particularly in the School Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee and consider how this might be done.

Knowledge Exchange and CPD – these were both areas discussed in brief at the Executive as areas that we would need to focus more attention on.

PGR  – this is an area that College would like to see growth in for all Schools. The Executive have agreed we need to tie any growth to a clear School Research Strategy. We will be looking to develop this strategy over the next six months and there will be opportunities for input and comment.

PGT  – numbers would appear to be up so we would need to an eye to ensure we have the staffing to meet the demand. As many are conditional offers, it is difficult to know who will turn up till they do.

Finance  – the School financial situation continues to require attention. This unfortunately will be a key focus I will have over the coming months/year. I will share more with you at the School meeting on the afternoon of Tuesday June 4th.

Matters for School meeting – to ensure this meeting is helpful and informative for all, if you have particular issues you would like comment or discussion on, please let me know. I do not promise we can address all but I shall try to accommodate.

Rowena

Email Overload!!

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Email overload… .the more we check.. the more we send…it was suggested to me that we should stop sending each other emails in the evenings and at weekends. I know that I send emails late at night, early in the morning, at weekends because I need to stay on top of my emails or often send things at the point of thinking of things in case I forget.  However, it is a serious suggestion so I am going to try not to send anymore emails in the evening or at weekends from now. You have permission to pick me up on this if I lapse. Shall we all try to not overload each other in the evenings and at weekends? I notice in the main we tend to be very good on Friday evenings and Saturdays however on Sunday, it starts again.

Less may well be more!

Rowena

Flying Free – Showcase Celebration

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Amanda Gizzi and Susan McLaren invite all to Flying Free – Showcase Celebration – Art and Design, Design and Technology, Wednesday 5th June, 16.30 – 19.30 hrs. There will be refreshments and nibbles.  Venue – Charteris Land, Moray House School of Education.

If you cannot make the opening event, the exhibition will be open on Thursday 6th and Friday 7th June from 09.00 – 16.30.

REF 2020 – Impact & Communication

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Impact…communication…,  these are clearly some of the key words for REF 2020.

Together with other staff and doctoral students, I attended an outstanding interactive seminar organized by the RKE office (Joanne Mair/Shona Cunningham) together with Lydia Plowman and Nanette Mutrie on impact and communication. There were also presentations from Sarah Anderson of the Beltane Public Engagement Network and Anne-Sofie Laegren of ERI on how to identify and communicate impact.

I suspect this session will run again and if it does, do sign up. I guarantee a very worthwhile, informative and fun session.

Rowena

Early Career Academics

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Succession planning is very important if we are to ensure key academic leadership roles are filled in the future.

The School is keen to ensure early career academics in the School receive support and development for them to mature as academic leaders in their chosen field. We have therefore released a small sum of money to enable Ellen Boeren and Debi Fry to explore how the School’s early career academics are establishing themselves as ‘future leaders’ within a School of Education. I hope their research will generate discussion but also identify ways in which the School can better support early career academics in this School.  If you are an early career academic and have not already been in touch with Ellen or Debi, please do consider taking part in this study.

The study will take place from October 2013- March 2014.

Rowena

Walk to School Week, May 20th – 24th

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Did you know that May 20th – 24th was Walk to School Week. Routledge have been promoting articles on this subject and featured an article written by Simon Beames and Hamish Ross  ‘Journeys Outside the Classroom’ (2005) published in the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.  

Thanks Andrew Horrell for this bit of information. To read Simon and Hamish’s article, go to

See: http://buff.ly/16MvMpl

Rowena

CREID Research

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Congratulations to CREID  and especially to Elisabet Weedon, Gillean McCluskey, Kristina Konstantoni and Sheila Riddell  for the very successful launch of their latest research report Muslim Families’Educational Experiences in England and Scotland. Excellent organizing form Fannie Kong for a very successful launch.

For more about this report See:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/education/research/centres-groups/creid/news-events/news-in-2012/briefing-28-mfees-finalrpt

Beltane Fellowship Success

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Congratulations to Sue Fletcher-Watson on being offered a Beltane Fellowship. Beltane Network exists to promote academic and public engagement. If you have something to contribute, why not look at http://www.beltanenetwork.org/?index.php

I am sure that previous and current fellows such as Nanette Mutrie, Liz Such and Jen Ross would be happy to share pointers in terms of how to apply for those interested in finding out more.

Research Bid Success

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Nanette Mutrie has also been part a successful bid led by Professor Sally Wyke of Glasgow University who have won an FP7 grant from the ‘Social Innovation’ call to undertake the project entitled European Football Fans in Training EUROFFIT.

Over the next five years they will investigate ways of promoting sitting less and moving more for football fans across Europe based on the award winning Scottish version FFIT -Football Fans in training – which was funded by NIHR and involved all Premier League clubs in Scotland

See: http://www.spl-ffit.co.uk