Recently in collaboration with a couple of colleagues on Twitter I wrote a letter to Nick Gibb, the Minister in charge of schools. It was in response to a section of a speech by Michael Gove in which for the first time seemingly acknolwedged the role of technology in supporting education. That letter was sent a couple of weeks ago and as of today the 1st of August I have yet to receive a response. Obviously any response I get will be blogged.
I have been thinking (and did receive some prompting online) about a letter to Andy Burnham, the shadow secretary for education. Andy is on twitter at @andyburnhammp and he seems to be an amiable chap who tweets occasionally about educational matters and a fair bit about football. He has responded to a tweet or two in the past but seems to be careful about picking his responses. More crucially though (and this may be symptomatic of general Labour shadow cabinet context) he doesn't seem to be leading in terms of credible alternative options and policies regarding education in the UK.
What I am going to propose is therefore to send a letter to the Labour shadow secretary of education to outline firstly what we wrote to the Tories about and see whether we can open up discussions with peers and fellow colleagues throughout the UK. I have a further idea which I will outline below but at the very least I hope the letter will at least be able to enlighten Labour to the potential and possibilities available to them in support, consultation and ideas from the wider teaching community in the UK.
I do have a further idea which could be incorporated into a letter to the Labour secretary. I have been thinking about how Teachmeets could be used to support any possible collaborative work with politicians. I think politicians have been invited in the past and I am not sure whether any have come or not. If they have I am sure they would be impressed at what is on offer however what is demonstrated is often very inward focussing ideas which can only really work on a smaller scale dependant on another teacher's enthusiasm and often creative use of a budget. These ideas therefore tend to be very micro scale and so they should be as the vast majority of attendees I would assume are normal teachers each with only a few classes and a school to influence.
I think Teachmeets could therefore be used for macro scale ideas where educationalists could demonstrate or pitch ideas and projects which could impact schools positively across the country. I envisage presenters therefore giving their ideas not only to an audience of fellow peers but also invited politicians. How the evening would be run and who would come up to speak are other issues which can be discussed another time if this idea has legs.
As for the next letter itself I will be wait to see whether this blog picks up any reaction and then probably begin it in a few days.
