Monthly Meeting with Michael Wood Executive Director of Children and Familes Service

Yesterday morning I had my regular meeting with Michael Wood, Executive Director of Children and Families' Service, along with my colleague, Councillor Georgia Cruickshank. 

This is an opportunity to have a briefing on the Agenda Items for the Children and Families' Service Committee meeting next Monday 28 November 2016.

In our meeting in Michael's office, we discussed each item but we paid most attention to the items about the Attainment Challenge Update and the Teacher Numbers in Dundee Schools. 

The Attainment Challenge Update is essentially a progress report on Dundee school projects funded by £4 million from the Scottish Attainment Challenge. As this update is reporting on the first full year of this programme, the report maps out more about the additional staff appointed and the arrangements in place for future evaluation of 'closing the attainment gap' rather than detailing rising attainment.

Th item on Teacher Numbers in Dundee Schools reports to the Committee and the general public on the number of teachers in post in our primary and secondary schools in the designated census week in September 2016. These figures are meticulously reported to the Scottish Government. Additionally I think the figures should be reported more widely, thus my insistence at an earlier meeting of the former Education Committee that these details should be reported annually in the Autumn. This year the report records a creeping up of the pupil teacher ratio. While the report refers to some indicators of improvement in the recruitment and selection of teachers, it continues to be a shortage of teachers. While we should be vigilant in tracking the number of teachers in our schools, we should also be concerned about the learning outcomes achieved from this investment.

Education Meetings Wednesday 20 April 2016

Earlier today I had a series of three meetings about education in Dundee. 

The day began with a briefing I had requested about the financing of the building of the replacement Baldragon Academy currently under construction. The funding is referred to as DBFM which stands for Design, Build, Finance and Maintain. This is on the agenda of the Policy and Resources Committee next Monday evening.

The second meeting was with Mrs MacGregor the Head Teacher at Forthill Primary School. Now in her second term at the helm, Mrs MacGregor was formerly Head Teacher at Victoria Park Primary School, Blackness Road. We had a wide ranging discussion including Curriculum for Excellence, Read Write Inc phonics based literacy programme, numeracy developments and computer coding. I also had a conducted tour of the school. While I was there one of the year groups were enjoying an African Drumming workshop. 

The third meeting was back in Dundee House to meet Michael Wood, Executive Director of Children and Families' Service for a briefing about his reports coming up at the first meeting of the integrated Children and Families' Service Committee on Monday next. This new committee replaces the former Education and Social Work Committees. 

This is an important monthly meeting which helps to inform my role as Labour Education Spokesperson in the city. More specifically it will help inform how I, and my colleagues in the Labour group, might respond to the important issues that will be raised for decision at both the Children and Families' Service and Policy and Resources Committees next Monday evening.

All three meetings help to keep me informed about the policy and practice issues for our schools in the city in general and of course more specifically in The Ferry. There is a lot going on and it's important to keep abreast of it.

Council Make Grammatical Error in the Title of New Combined Education and Socal Work Service

At the Education Committee on Monday 28 September,  I asked Michael Wood, the Executive Director of Children and Families' Service, a question about punctuation. As Executive Director I asked why the service he heads apparently had decided to remove an apostrophe after the s in Families in the title of the amalgamated service? 

This omission was apparent in the title and body of the reports that he had brought to Committee. I understand that this will also be used on letter heads and the Council's website.

I had previously raised this matter in private with Michael Wood and had hoped that matter would have been sorted out without having to raise it at the Education Committee.

As the head of the service that is responsible for the teaching of reading and writing in our schools, I think our Executive Director of Children and Families' Service should lead by example. 

Interestingly, the Convener of Education, Councillor Stewart Hunter, avoided revealing whether he and the SNP group of Councillors had been responsible for, or were party to this decision.

I have sent a copy of the committee report to the Apostrophe Protection Society.