The Education Committee met today to ask questions of Michael Gove. Part of the session was given to specific #AskGove tweets submitted. See what Mr Gove had to say:

The best and the worst of social media is in the news this week.

Got a question for Michael Gove? Tweet #AskGove!

On 31st January the Education Committee will be questioning Michael Gove, and the MPs involved want to know what YOU would ask him.  What are your most pressing questions about Education?

To submit a question, send a tweet including the hashtag #AskGove by 11am on 27th January.

There sure are some interesting questions already being asked! I think this is a great way for people to send in their questions to Mr Gove.  Obviously there’s no guarantee that every question will be asked, but it demonstrates a willingness to harness the power of social media to hear what people really think.

Teachers warned over befriending pupils on Facebook

In the Guardian today: “More than one in 10 school teachers accused of misconduct last year had used social networking sites and email to forge inappropriate relationships with their pupils, an analysis of disciplinary cases has found.”

There’s no doubt that social media can be a powerful tool in education, but there is a gap in understanding both the risks and potential.

It’s important that everyone employed in an educational environment understands the risks associated with social media.  Having said that, inappropriate behaviour is inappropriate behaviour whether it takes place in person or online (and there will be policies already in place outlining what is/isn’t appropriate).

But does everyone in your school understand the risks and opportunities that social media brings?  Here’s what you can do – and be sure to share with the rest of your Governing Body:

1. Download our free guides to Twitter and Facebook
2. Watch our short videos “What is Social Media?” and ”What is Twitter?“
3. Revisit some of our blogs about school governors and social media – the opportunities, and the risks and guiding principals
4. Download our Social Media Guidance for School Governors which we prepared with NCOGS
5. If you’ve got a Modern Governor subscription, take a look at our School Governors and Social Media e-learning module which contains handy template social media policies

The DfE has recently released an updated list of statutory policies for schools.  It outlines which type of schools the policies apply to, and how often the policy should be reviewed.  This will change again this year with the introduction of the Education Act 2011.

Here is the original document from the DfE website.  I’d really like to be able to point people to some good template policies for each of these, so if you’re willing to share your template policy with the rest of the Modern Governor community send me a note via email!

Download the document from here.

View the document on Scribd.

The DfE have issued the second of their termly bulletins.  This has been emailed to all Headteachers.

It talks about the updated timeline of milestones for 2011/2012, an update on the reduction of bureaucracy, and statutory policies that schools should have in place.

Click here to read the DfE’s termly bulletin.

What do you think of these bulletins so far?  Have you seen them?  Are they useful?

]]> http://www.moderngovernor.com/dfe-back-to-school-message-for-spring-term-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.moderngovernor.com/dfe-back-to-school-message-for-spring-term-2012/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/moderngovernor/~3/gTB24rDM1DQ/ http://www.moderngovernor.com/ict-computer-science-schools-and-governors/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:12:55 +0000 Elaine Walton http://www.moderngovernor.com/?p=2743 Continue reading →]]>

Over the last few days there has been an avalanche of news and opinion about ICT in schools.

Schools are being overcharged in IT leasing agreements, signing agreements that overcharge them for the most basic IT equipment.

Ian Livingstone talks about a “nation of digital illiterates“, who spend a year learning how to use PowerPoint, and as a result are so bored by their lessons that they switch off from ICT.

Graham Brown-Martin wrote on TES about how technophobia doesn’t belong in education. Children are themselves switching from TV to internet, and today Michael Gove will announce that school ICT will be replaced by Computer Science.  This may be a challenge as, in 2010, of the 28000 teachers who qualified only 3 held a computing degree, but Mr Gove says he wants to concentrate on training teachers rather than buying hardware.   Another interesting blog here from Pat Parslow about Digital Literacy and how new ways of “teaching” may be necessary.

The Computer Science programme will be with “help from Microsoft and Google”.   We’re slightly biased on this one, as we believe that open source software should be the first choice because it’s cost-effective and flexible.

So, why am I highlighting all these stories? I sometimes get asked by Governors if I can send them paper versions of our e-learning modules or our online newsletter and post to their home address.  Unfortunately, it’s not something we can do for them, as they’ve all been designed for the screen.  I’ve also had a few Governors tell me that they refuse to use email for their school governing duties.

Simultaneously I’ve noticed that more local governors’ associations are using social media to reach their members and the wider school governance community, and there is a move by the wider public sector to make services “digital by default”.

Is an offline governor a barrier to an effective governing body in today’s world?  Should digital literacy be a pre-requisite to becoming a school governor?  Will a change to the curricula deter some people from volunteering to be a school governor, for fear that their offline status will rule them out?

Looking forward to reading your comments!

A massive well done to the Governor Services team at Monmouthshire Council.

They’ve recently recorded a series of videos to help Governors learn more about their role in their own time.

Wendy Barnard, Senior Support Services Officer stars in the first of a series of films planned:

“We felt that a small amount of our time making short videos giving governors key information would be valuable to governors. Those who already do the job can remind themselves of what they have to do to be effective and those who can’t always make it to meetings and training sessions don’t miss out. With video governors can rewind and stop the video if they need to make notes and also access information that we’ve made short and to the point.

“We use equipment available to all staff at the council to make the film so the only cost is our time.

“We’ve had good feedback from governors on the first one we made so we’re going to make a series of films tackling the issues that matter to those who do the job.”

You can view the videos on the Monmouthshire Council Governor Services page.

What do you think? Does your Governor Services team do this? Would you find it useful? Let me know your thoughts.

The decorations are up, the presents are wrapped and even my dogs have their festive hats at the ready.  Nativity plays have been watched, cards have been posted and there’s just that “big shop” left to do!

All that’s left is to say “thank you”…

Thank you for all your wonderful comments, “likes” and tweets this year.  And thanks for being a School Governor too!  You’re making a difference to the lives of all of the children at your school and, without you, life would be a much duller place!

From all of us here at Modern Governor and Learning Pool…..Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year – see you in 2012!

Elaine

In December Learning Pool ran the annual “12 Days of Christmas” campaign, where our sparkly team give away daily goodies to members of the Learning Pool community, either as downloads or as competition prizes.

This year two of our downloadable goodies proved especially popular with School Governors – the “101 Inspirational Learning Quotes” ebook and the children’s activity book.

To download these we asked “what’s your biggest training challenge?“.  Some of the answers are below – do you agree that these are the biggest training challenges facing school governors?

“Training a  small number of people with a wide range of experience.”

“Too much change to keep up with.”

“Getting Governors to contribute at meetings.”

“Finding the time!”

“Change management.”

“Better management information“

“Finding time and motivation.”

“Make sure that everyone gets the same message and that we are unified in our approaches”

“Engaging all governors to take part in training relevant to them.”

So, what’s the biggest training challenge facing YOU as a School Governor?

More information

• Become a member of the Learning Pool community.
• Download some #LP12days goodies
• Learn more about Modern Governor

Modern Governor is the UK’s leading provider of e-learning for School Governors with over 20,000 governors online. We continually work with governance experts throughout the country to improve Modern Governor and deliver it to the people who need it to improve how they govern our schools. We’ve also almost tripled the e-learning content available – at no extra cost!

Given the unprecedented focus on spending in the last couple of years and because we know you are under pressure with your budgets, we have decided to freeze the price of Modern Governor for the fifth year running.  We hope that by doing this we can help you to support your school governors better by giving you a cost-effective way for your governors to access quality, interactive, engaging e-learning content, written by school governance experts.

Here’s the low-down for Co-ordinators of Governor Services:

• It will cost a Local Authority £89* per school per year for unlimited access to all Modern Governor content (*excluding any VAT)
• This cost includes your Dynamic Learning Environment, to track learning and manage other learning resources
• There is no minimum number of schools that have to subscribe
• Schools can subscribe at any time during your subscription period but will be charged at the full rate of £89* - so the sooner they subscribe the more they can use Modern Governor
• Discounts are available based on the % of schools which subscribe and for how long
• How you charge your schools is up to you (for example through your SLA, SBA etc)
• We invoice you, for you to invoice the schools accordingly

All you need to do is invite your schools to subscribe to Modern Governor.

And for schools subscribing independently of their local authority:

• The cost will remain £299* per school per year for unlimited access to all Modern Governor content (*excluding any VAT)
• This cost includes your Dynamic Learning Environment, to track learning

The reason we can hold our prices is because we are from Learning Pool, the UK’s largest public sector learning community.  Learning Pool is where councils collaborate and share e-learning content, and our services have helped councils save more than £36 million since 2007.

Take a look at our module catalogue – currently 21 e-learning modules, available 24/7, for your Governors.  New modules are released regularly throughout the year – read more about our plans for 2012.

If you’d like to know more, please get in touch with me.

Elaine

We’re delighted to announce that this year Modern Governor will again be sponsoring the National Governors’ Association (NGA).

NGA support local governor associations and governing bodies, lobby ministers and policy makers on all policies that impact schools and offer high-quality guidance, information, conferences and advice for governors and governance professionals.

In a time of immense change for education and governance, I think the NGA offers tremendous support to Governors.

I’m delighted also that we’ll be developing some e-learning modules with the NGA.

Look out for more exciting news in January 2012 about our partnership with the NGA, and for our spot in “Governing Matters”.

Visit the NGA website to find out more about NGA membership.

Elaine