I'm feeling guilty because I haven't posted for almost two weeks, and I had aimed to post at least once a week. In the early blog honeymoon period I was posting at least twice a week. I'm keen not to let this drift too far, because I know that there are regular readers who use the blog to keep up to date with how things are at Stoke Newington. Oddly (or maybe not) I'm also pretty sure that the blog is not particularly read by parents of students at the school. The blog was originally established as a means of communicating developments frequently with parents, and it was well publicised. Even a recent reminder in Spotlight (our school newsletter) hasn't increased traffic to the blog in any significant way. I'm not sure I'd regularly read a school blog about BSF, though.
Anyway, one of the other reasons I haven't blogged for a while is that we seem to have hit a slow patch. When I look at my post from early January, nothing much has changed. The outstanding issues remain outstanding, although I'd like to think there is all sorts of furious work going on in the background. On top of that we are trying to unravel the fact that it seems the school will be responsible for moving ICT into the temporary accommodation, which is far more expensive, time consuming and complicated than it sounds. There is also an ongoing issue of market-testing for best value.
I think everyone's getting pretty fed up now, and it's fair to say we had a pretty grumpy D&B meeting last week. We had thought that Governors would meet mid-February to take a final decision, but that's almost certainly going to slip. Until Governors make that final decision there's a lot of uncertainty, particularly for staff who may transfer to the LEP. We had hoped that we would move to BSF services from April, which fits neatly around the financial year, but I can't see any way of that happening now. This makes budget planning for next year difficult, and there are lots of other things, such as the move, that we can't put in motion until we know we're joining the programme. My particular dread is that the construction programme will slip. We really have to make the move into temporary accommodation over the Whitsun break, or something already complicated and difficult will become a logistical nightmare.
On the positive side, I have managed to do a fair amount of non-BSF work for a few days. Go on, ask me anything about HR policies!
Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 31/01/08 Forty-four - it's all slowed down a bit recently
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2 comments:
Jill... I undestand thet the BSF ICT Company will be taking over and controlling the Schools/ Boroughs Network..
I understad the Technicians might be TUPED over to the new company to be Toner Changers..
But whats going to happen to your Network Manager as he won't have a Network to Manage anymore and I doubt that he will be paid a Network Managers pay to change mice and keyboards.. ?
You're absolutely right. We have a team of 3 ICT staff, including our network manager. We will be going to 1 plus a technician shared with two other schools, although there may be a slightly higher level of staffing in the first instance. Obviously we're concerned about the drop in staffing levels, but RM say they have to make it work. Basically RM make their vacancy bulletin available from a point to be agreed with the school, and any of the technicians can start applying for posts anywhere. RM say (and I think it's true, not least because of the amount of BSF projects they're involved in) that there are lots of positions available, including international postings. Basically, though, BSF will be removing the strongest technical staff from schools unless schools can fund an additional post from their own budget and find a way to make it satisfying to the post holder. Personally I think this is likely to be detrimental to education in the long term.
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