Monday 4 February 2008

Greetings Edugeek!

Well I wondered why I'd had a few comments from visitors who were obviously concerned about the ICT side of BSF, and now I know. Welcome to anyone popping by who's followed the link from Edugeek.

I've been an occasional Edugeek lurker for a couple of years now. Our Network Manager and I met Tony (Grumbledook) at BETT 2006, having spent the day complaining bitterly about the ICT aspect of BSF to anyone who'd listen. At the time it was clear many people didn't know what on earth we were talking about. If they'd heard of BSF they didn't know what it meant for ICT. What a difference two years makes. Anyway, since then I've been checking the Edugeek BSF forums pretty frequently. It was partly because I realised how valuable it was to be able to communicate with others involved in various stages of the same process, even if you don't agree with them, that I started this blog. As you can probably tell, I'm working on all aspects of BSF at our school, but I've never managed to find any kind of "BSF Champion" (for that is indeed what they call me) community. A few months on, and I still haven't. If anyone knows where I can find one, please let me know.

With regard to the ICT aspect of BSF, a trawl through this blog will probably give you an overview of my feelings. To summarise, it's been the most painful aspect of the whole process for us as a school. We're pretty proud of our ICT provision, and the prospect of having our Network Manager (and potentially other team members) surgically removed is one of the worst aspects of a pretty awful process. For us in Hackney, and I believe this to be the case in all other BSF areas, the ICT is a non-negotiable part of BSF. The big question has therefore always been "Is the pain worth the gain?" We're getting £18m of sorely needed capital investment, but sometimes we've been very close to pulling out, and we still haven't made any final commitment. That said, working with RM has been far more positive than I had expected it to be, and we now know pretty much where we are with the ICT offer, even if we would have preferred not to be there.

Anyway, thanks for dropping in. Hope you'll come again soon. I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anyone's interested in getting a "BSF Champion" perspective on things.

2 comments:

Dook said...

The partnership within your school is something that has made the provision and use of ICT so strong.

There is no doubt that to lose that many staff will be devastating to innovation within your school.

Are you going to try and keep any staff in different, school-funded roles?

Jill C said...

It's something we've chewed over (including with the Network Manager), but we're not convinced there would be anything meaty enough left under BSF. It would be interesting to know about your role.