Letter from the Chair
June 1998
Dear Colleagues,
As the warm, sunny days of exam time are upon us again it does not seem like almost a
year since I took up the post of Chair of ASE Scotland. You may remember that in my first
such letter I was rash enough to set a target for my year in office. If you cannot quite
remember, it was to raise the membership of ASE Scotland to more than 1000 again.
Unfortunately the news which had to be reported at our ABM in March was that we were still
some way from that target. However there is still some time left before the end of my year
and I will take this last opportunity to ask you to look out the last edition of Education
in Science/Scottish Science Issues and make use of the special membership form it
contained, if you have not already done so. If you do manage to use it an ASE book of your
choice will be shortly winging its way to you.
I have enjoyed my year having had the opportunity to attend a number of ASE events
around the country. I was also able to represent ASE Scotland at the Irish Science
Teachers Association Conference in Limerick just before Easter. It was my first visit to
Ireland and I was welcomed with all of the hospitality I had heard about from others in
the past. The ISTA Conference is about he same size as our own with two or three parallel
sessions on various topics. Primary science is not well developed in Ireland, nor is the
presence of Technicians in secondary schools, so the Conference concentrates very much on
secondary science, and when I say science I mean science, not science education. It was
quite refreshing to attend a conference which concentrated on lectures on new aspects of
scientific research and how they might be used to stimulate interest in science rather
than on education, assessment and the like. I am sure that with lectures by Hugh
Pennington and Colin Humphreys at our own Conference next March we will also have at least
two such top class events.
The other event which I feel stood out this year was the Day Conference we held last
November for Recently Qualified Teachers. Rhona Goss reports on some of the issues raised
by the delegates later in this edition of SSI, they form a list any teacher, education
manager, or indeed education minister could gain much from giving some thought. I think it
is important that ASE supports teachers at the very start of their careers with the kinds
of help they require and I hope we can follow up this event with others as well as with
the new membership package which has been put together for students transferring to
teacher members. This package deal includes spreading the cost of membership over a number
of instalments at a time when salaries, if you are lucky enough to have a permanent one,
are never quite going to go far enough.
The format of the day was also a success and with this in mind the Tayside and Fife
Committee are again organising a National Day Conference for ASE Scotland. The topic this
time is Assessment, Achievement and Raising Standards, things that I am sure have been the
concern of all teachers for as long as there have been teachers, but topics given
increased prominence in recent months. Even at this early planning stage I am sure the
Conference is going to provide worthwhile professional development for any teacher. See
the Meeting Notices for more information and I look forward to seeing you in Dundee next
November.
In the meantime I wish you all a pleasant and relaxing summer holiday and trust you
will return in August suitably refreshed to take on the new challenges which will be upon
us, whether they be preparing for Higher Still, Level F or one of the others off your long
list.
Finally I can now look forward to just having to be editor of these letters again, that
means me not doing very much as you have probably already realised, and let Gordon Doig
have the pleasure of providing the content.
Yours,
Stuart Farmer