Thank you for your attendance and contributions to the Mentors’ conference at Inveraray on the 8th and 9th May at Inveraray. There were many positives from the two days and the showcase events illustrated the high level of creativity in ICT that exists in our early years establishments, primary and secondary schools. I’m sure that the presenters will be happy to receive requests for further information on their approaches to ICT in learning and teaching.

I’m currently receiving some very useful feedback on the two days and I’d be grateful if you would take the time to share your thoughts with me.

While there was obvious disappointment at the news that the Glow training programme had changed, I am hopeful that the new plans that I outlined provide a more coordinated approach to post-training developments.

In addition, the other ICT initiatives in Argyll and Bute that were described at the conference provide you with an opportunity to maintain your contribution in your school and local area in the lead-up to Glow implementation.

Maggie and I are now beginning the process of designing the ICT inservice programme for session 2007-08 and we will provide you with details on this in order that you can consider your possible involvement.

I am delighted that Maggie Irving is now working with me as Acting Education Support Officer for ICT. One of Maggie’s first tasks will be to visit each Mentor at their school in order to have an in-depth discussion with them on their use of ICT in school and our preparation for Glow development after the Mentor training at Stirling. A draft, training plan has already been produced but awaits your ideas and observations after your central training.

I am aware that many of you would like to have a discussion area and Maggie has set up a closed wiki where we will be able to develop our ideas for Glow, Mentors’ roles and ICT’s role in A Curriculum for Excellence. I will contact you by email with the login details for the wiki in the near future. The initial discussions will be based on your questions and observations from the meeting at SETT. I will not attempt to answer all of them at once but will organise them into themes for discussion. The themes will be:

• A Mentors’ role in Argyll and Bute
• A Mentor’s CPD
• The development and rollout of Glow
• Communication across the group
• Technical support to schools

I hope that all of you are now familiar with the new online area for Education in Argyll and Bute: http://www.education.ea.argyll-bute.sch.uk and have noted the link to this site and your blogs; thank you again for your continued and regular contribution to these. Any suggested improvements to the ICT area or the site in general would be gratefully received.

Once again my thanks to all of the Mentors who have continued to contribute to their blog. Andrew Brown has now established the blog feed facility, which makes it easier to see the regularity of submissions. While I fully appreciate your existing workload, a regular submission would be appreciated as I have already been publicising our approach to other authorities. The authorities in question are the group known as Pathfinder North, which consists of Argyll and Bute, Highland, Moray, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands and Western Isles.

Pathfinder North is the name for the group’s broadband initiative and education representatives meet regularly to discuss the benefits of collaboration for teaching and learning. At the last meeting, I demonstrated our Mentors’ website to the group who were very impressed with the speed at which we had publicised the work of the team. In addition, the other authorities recognised the potential for a combined approach that would provide access to all of the Mentors across Pathfinder North. I will of course keep you abreast of developments in this area.

I now have details of the Mentor training courses that you have said you will be unable to attend and I will pass this information onto LTS.

LTS has announced the Mentor Pilot, Phase 1 is due to start on 13th November, with briefing information going out to all mentors the week before that. I have had the opportunity to read the brief and I hope that you will use your blog to provide feedback on your views of the portal. A session for authority contacts has been organised for the 31st October where there will be a portal demonstration, an update about the pilot and a chance to have a look at the Mentor training materials. Once again I will keep you informed of events.