Laurie O'Donnell

Living beside the sea on the sunny and (relatively rain free) east coast of Scotland means that on most Sunday mornings I can play golf. I was up as usual just before 6.30 but the rain was just too heavy for me today so a good opportunity to get back into blogging.
It is hard to [...]

What a year it has been. Every year is significant but some years seem to me to be more memorable than others. These years stick in my mind, at least in part, because of a big step I took in my life – usually a step that felt pretty scary at the time.
1979 was [...]

Attended a great event last Tuesday evening (it’s been a busy week so just sitting down now to reflect on it now).
The event started with the YouTube video narrated by Lorraine Kelly which is full of the great stuff that is happening in this small post-industrial city on the north-eastern coast of Scotland – from [...]

Another really great SLF. It felt  really strange just walking around meeting people and enjoying the event without having any responsibilities.
I ended up spending a lot of time catching-up with old friends and former colleagues and for a change was not dashing off to chair a session or attend a launch.
Apart from the very important [...]

I’m back thanks to Neil and Andy at Glidden Design.
Ready to start posting at the weekend on life and work post LTS.

I left LTS at the end of June to work for myself and am in the process of moving this blog to my new website which will go live early in August.

It is now 5 days since I left the ranks of the salaried public sector to become self employed. At the moment it just feels like the school holidays in the years when I was a teacher … and I am loving it
My plan is to take most of July to get myself [...]

 
Not been keeping my blog up to date recently – sign of being too busy.
I spent the week before last in London attending two events. The first was a Becta organised conference which was attended by 60 ministers of education including our own Maureen Watt, MSP, Minister for Schools and Skills.
Some great speakers including:

Sir Tim [...]

I have been out and about a lot over the last couple of weeks and not found much time to post – so time for a bit of a catch-up.
I spent 24 hours in Belfast a couple of weeks ago with my counterparts from Wales and Northern Ireland. Looking back over my almost seven years [...]

Started last week at a Scottish Government Glow Programme Board in Edinburgh. Glow continues to progress according to plan – slow and steady but supportable and sustainable. The publicity continues to be positive and the most important advocates of Glow, our pupils and teachers, seem to like what is in offer and see the potential [...]