I feel like today has been a huge breakthrough day for the project. Apart from the very thought-provoking seminar from Dr Adele Flood from the University of New South Wales (which chimed in really interesting ways with the work we’re doing) I’ve also had two very productive meetings with senior managers in two other schools. They’re both considering their EAM strategies at the moment and Paul Buckley and I have successfully convinced both of them to adopt the work-flow design we’re evaluating for the project.

I feel really confident now explaining it to colleagues a) because I’ve done it so many times that I’ve got the snappy patter down and good answers to most of the questions they throw at me and b) because I really believe in it as a design, as a method and as a strategy: to me it just makes sense.

In at least one of these schools we’re now in the position of being able to get really good quality, widespread diagnostic data that could be used to provide  effective individual- and cohort-specific bespoke support; this is something that is simply unimaginable in a paper-based system. If we can join forces with the iTeam project from the University of Hertfordshire and feed this into a dashboard, then we’re really going to be doing something extraordinary!

I’m feeling very satisfied after a busy but very productive day!