C.E. Jottings

Inspire me today? Glenda certainly does.

Glenda Watson-Hyatt has written a great piece at "Inspire me today". I'll not add anything to what Glenda has written but just let you take a look for yourself. Except this: it seems to me there are people we meet who understand almost instinctively the transformational potential in and for our lives of learning and doing - and are an inspiration to the rest of us. Read more →

Remembering Dr Hari

Andrew Sutton has published on his blog a post "Remember Maria" Reading it reminded me that in our meeting room at Paces Campus hangs a picture taken at the 1993 Sheffield Summer School. I took it down and scanned it in. Here it is: The Conductor on the left is Elizabeth Pappert. (Hello Elizabeth, wherever you are, from all of us in Sheffield.) My daughter Sarah is in the middle in the grey sweatshirt. Who is the conductor behind her?... Read more →

The Future of SEN in 6 parts. If you care, read it.

If you care enough, I urge you, as I have just done again, to read the 6-part blog post by Andrew Sutton "The Future of SEN I - VIThe future of SEN – I. The future of SEN – II. The future of SEN – III. The future of SEN – IV. The future of SEN – V. The future of SEN - VI I recommend reading each of the posts. But if you cannot manage that let me bring... Read more →

Dynamic conversations

Continuing to experiment with this blog ... I've added a TypePad feature called "threaded comments". According to TypePad, "threaded comments allow readers to reply directly to each other’s comments, creating a more dynamic conversation". You can also get an email when someone adds a comment to you yours. The layout should look a bit different too. It'll be interesting to see how it works out. Apparently "TypePad Connect" works with Blogger, too, so Blogger users might like to try it... Read more →

Same coin, maybe - 2 sides, perhaps

Cuts? Or Big Society? FYI .... From NCVO: Lessons for the UK from cutting Canadian VCS and Building a List of Big Society Blogs. Read more →

Senge on Sustainability and Learning

Lib Dems, Free Schools, the Peto Institute

So, the Liberal Democrats at their annual conference voted against the coalition government's Free Schools policy. It is, they say, "divisive, costly and unfair". Nick Clegg tells Channel 4 News that the activists "misunderstand" the policy. What are we to make of it all? How is it possible to comment and not be thought party political? When we took Sarah to the Peto Institute in Budapest, Hungary all those years ago we asked simply, "Can you help her?" In truth,... Read more →

Changes afoot (2) - thinking it all afresh

As I continue experimenting with changes to this blog, I see that I first posted on May 30th 2007 - "For Starters". At lunch-time that day I was attended a meeting of OFFER (Sheffield's voluntary sector network) on the subject of child Poverty. There is no link to OFFER here as it ceased to exist through lack of funding from April this year. Things change. I wrote in that post that the new blog was to be a fresh start... Read more →

Changes afoot

Change is in the air .... more when we know more. For now, over the next week or so, I'll be experimenting with changes to the layout of this blog. Please bear with me if things work and then don't work. And your feedback will be most welcome. :-) Next morning I have discovered how to make a couple of changes: I can add a Navigation Bar near the top of the blog with links to other content. So you... Read more →

Ofsted queries too wide use of "special needs"

Back in July, I queried the value of the term "special educational needs" when it was being applied to so many children. I was following the debate on the Academies Bill as it passed through Parliament. Lord Low of Dalston advised the Lords that ""Twenty-one per cent of children have some form of special educational need." Rather tentatively, I suggested that "if as many as 1 in 5 of our children have 'some form of special educational need' there is... Read more →