A New Year and time for some updating… A lot of activity over the past few months including some school consultancy work, presentations, local authority research & report writing, and marketing work for a major ICT supplier. It’s been varied, interesting and well-received.

Time for an update… Several interesting areas projects since the last post, including work for (and a visit to!) a client in Boston, USA that required some training and information on educational developments in the UK. At the moment, there are three key projects on the front burner, two of which are confidential – so nothing can be said – the other supporting a leading education organisation in case study research and writing.

School holidays so a quieter couple of weeks – phew. A chance to complete some admin, do some research and start some preparation for two upcoming projects…

Great to be receiving so much positive feedback from the SWGfL conferences, including this the latest:

“As for the conferences, your contribution was much valued. As I said at UWE, your keynote was one of the very few which have brought attentive silence to the delegates who arrived too late to get into the lecture theatres, and had to listen and watch from the foyer. Delegates I spoke to were unanimous in their appreciation. I hope we will be able to use you again.”

SWGfL Conference Feedback

Always pleasing to get this sort of official feedback…

“On behalf of the SWGfL Conference Planning Group, we would like to thank you for supporting our conference this year. Our keynotes have traditionally been based around strategy and leadership but we were very keen this year to engage and directly inspire the classroom teacher; theirs are often the hardest “horizons” to “expand” as it is difficult to get a global perspective when you are at the chalk face. I have to say, you met all of our expectations and preliminary feedback has been superb. It soon became apparent that they all needed a jotter to get the ideas down quick enough! You also tempered it with a superb sense of humour and a very honest connection with the delegates that I know was appreciated by those in the two auditoria.

Thanks too for providing the seminars that you delivered; I trust the response from them was equally as positive.

In the meantime, on behalf of all the authorities involved in the event, can we thank you once again for giving us a very valuable and memorable keynote and for getting each day off to such a flying start.”

What’s been happening?

Another busy few weeks since the last post and a pleasing variety of work too, including a piece of research for an international company on opportunities for a commercial product in secondary English schools. Interesting work and the client very pleased. Involved too in supporting some schools with their VLE implementation. A big focus this week in giving two keynote presentations at the prestigious and well-regarded South West Grid for Learning ICT Conferences – of which more later. Just enough time to say, it went well!

Some good feedback from yesterday’s Diploma support day in London…

“Many thanks for yesterday – I was very glad to be under your tutelage, and learned a lot in a short time. It’s clearly going to be an interesting journey, but at least I’ve made a start.”

“Great day yesterday Andy – thanks for the positive input, the ideas you generated and for raising so many questions!”

Been quite a busy month since the last post. The time has been spent working on a development programme for middle leaders in primary and secondary schools, supporting teachers in the introduction of the new Diploma qualification and a couple of presentations on ICT in education. One as far north as Middlesbrough.

More positive feedback about the second of the local authority reports:

“By the way I am full of admiration for the quality of your report (you can’t be held responsible for the messages in the content!!!). Do use me for a reference on any tenders – believe me, compared to a lot of reports we receive in local government, this was excellent!”

A positive and pleasing quick email reply to the first of the local authority reports:
“I’ve just finished reading your report & am delighted. It’s very clear and provides a lot of evidence for things we ‘knew’ already…It is a very clear summary of what has gone on and comments made which will be very helpful for our discussions…Well done, I’m really pleased with what you’ve been able to do for us.”