danIT Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 We've just had a tranining day here at my school. The first three hours was spent been talked to by some representives from the local council, arty farty poeple with odd glasses frames and wacky hair cuts, also representatives from BSF and architects from council. We got told what the kinds wanted, what they didint like about the current school, and how a a new school could look. whoopee! Then.....considering i was sat with the caretaker and site manager..we were aksed to put across our view, not in a mature brain stroming session, or debate. But we were give different situations in the school, outside learning space, outside/inside eating space, social area blah blah blah, and a a3 size peice of mdf. Then the got out the wooden blocks and a whole array of brightly coloured paper, fabric, and sitckly back plastic. I thought i caught a glimpse of Valerie Singleton i may be mistaken. YEs you got it, we had to design in 20mins our particular area!?! whats that all about then....talk about ticking the box oin the right form somwhere for the local government. pathetic. oooh by the way i made a wind farm, supplying electricity to the school and during the night earning the school money supplying the national grid. multicoloured straws, safety pin, and a bit of double sided sticky tape. There werent impressed, the crazy arty women did take a picture of the caretakers keys as she thought the were intresting! yeh i agree! so we still dont know whats going on, maybe it wont even happen, who knows if the school will have a mortage for 25 years, who knows how much it will be? then there was rumour of a partial re-build, a local special school is relocating to us? good luck everyone!
webman Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 We got a flyer today via UNISON, with a load of stuff about South Lanarkshire Council/LEA were keeping the "soft services" and support staff as they didn't believe the BSF was value for money. :shock:
GrumbleDook Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 BSF ... not value for money ... erm ... do you mind if we come up and raid your LA and clone them to stick in every other LA?
petectid Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 BSF ... not value for money ... erm ... do you mind if we come up and raid your LA and clone them to stick in every other LA? Our Head told me just this week that BSF was running short of funding and has now become known as PSF (painting schools for the future)?
webman Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 Tony: The comments were about/concerning South Lanarkshire, we're Durham LEA But yeah, if only we coud.... :? Bad Schools for the Future, Bankrupt Schools for the Future, Building Shareholders for the Future....
CyberNerd Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 We got a flyer today via UNISON, with a load of stuff about South Lanarkshire Council/LEA were keeping the "soft services" and support staff as they didn't believe the BSF was value for money. @webman, can you ask your Unison branch whether they consider ICT as a soft service? I'm still onvinced we're not covered by this. The level of consultaion is pretty poor. Partnerships UK PLC who are a profit making company, designed this consultation process and are making desisions about funding and our future. Are Unison even aware of this ?!?
webman Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 Will do CyberNerd. Left flyer at work so will look for some contact details on monday.
broc Posted October 7, 2006 Posted October 7, 2006 Are Unison even aware of this ?!? Unison is certainly aware, but from a Union perspective if the LA puts forward a successful inhouse bid for a managed ICT service the union will be happy. The Union priority is to protect jobs by keeping them out of private hands. They won't engage in any serious discussion about the merits of schools doing their own thing vs a LA managed service.
CyberNerd Posted October 7, 2006 Posted October 7, 2006 Any suggestions about how to help our LEA's put together a successful bid ?
broc Posted October 9, 2006 Posted October 9, 2006 Any suggestions about how to help our LEA's put together a successful bid ? Depends upon your relationship with the LEA & whether you trust them/they trust you I would say the best approach would be to make sure (as far as possible) they really understand what goes on in your school as far as ICT is concerned. You have to make sure your voice is heard & listened to. At a BSF meeting I attended with P4S and our LA & LEA ICT teams, the LA Corporate ICT people freely admitted they knew little about how ICT in schools was delivered. I believe the LA ICT folks think the LEA team deliver ICT across all schools in total (not the case, especially in Secondary schools). This kind of mis-information can lead to all sorts of problems. I only hope 'they' consult our schools before coming up with 'our' requirements for us. To give an example of where consultation is important; there was a suggestion that BSF should aim to deliver a student:PC ratio of 4:1, we are already at 3:1 and would consider dropping back to 4:1 to be a lowering of service.
ConTheITGuy Posted October 9, 2006 Posted October 9, 2006 At a BSF meeting I attended with P4S... 8O I had to read that 4 times before I realised it didn't say P45! Andy
Teth Posted October 9, 2006 Posted October 9, 2006 I don't want to derail but also don't think this is worth anew thread. I'm not currently a member of a Union. This is my first non agency job in a school. I expected to have been approached by a union rep by now to be honest having been at the school for 9 months but I havent and with the school being well into a Public private partnership program to build a new school I feel more and more that I should be in a union. There is alot of mention on this site of Unison are they good from a support staff point of view rather than say NASUWT.
broc Posted October 11, 2006 Posted October 11, 2006 Do you know where your ICT Budget comes from, and how much of it comes from 'Devolved capital'? Did you also know that 'Devolved capital' dries up for 3-4 years pre-BSF? So much for my 'rolling' program of replacing old kit
GrumbleDook Posted October 11, 2006 Posted October 11, 2006 I don't want to derail but also don't think this is worth anew thread. I'm not currently a member of a Union. This is my first non agency job in a school. I expected to have been approached by a union rep by now to be honest having been at the school for 9 months but I havent and with the school being well into a Public private partnership program to build a new school I feel more and more that I should be in a union. There is alot of mention on this site of Unison are they good from a support staff point of view rather than say NASUWT. NASUWT will only take you if you can show you have some element of a teaching or instruction role ... so they will take Cover Supervisors, HLTAs and, at a push, LSAs ... they discourage other associate staff. I would say Unison are the most common, but if you get to senior manglement level then ASCL are the people to join.
griffin Posted October 13, 2006 Posted October 13, 2006 GMB also cover support staff in schools. I decided to join GMB as they had the most representation in my current school.
Grommit Posted November 26, 2006 Posted November 26, 2006 could this be moved into the BSF forum please
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