BBC Blog Network

User Profile

stevelinton

Listed below are comments made by stevelinton between Thursday, 6th November 2008 and Friday, 5th June 2009.

«Newer
Older»

Suggest a story or an opinion poll question 9:05pm on 05 Jun 2009 Our village primary school (Crail, in the East Neuk of Fife) will, thanks to falling numbers of children, soon reach the point (about 80 or 90 children) where the council can no longer justify a full-time (non-teaching) head teacher. Many other primary schools in this large, and quite rural, county are in the same boat.

This is a problem, because it is very dificult to recruit or retain, good teaching heads -- all the good ones want to be promoted to non-teaching head in a larger school.

Fife council is offering (but not imposing, for which all praise to them) an interesting, and (at least round here) novel solution. They are suggesting that we share a full-time head with another similarly sized school a couple of villages away (Pittenweem). Opinion locally is mixed -- some people are concerned about dilution of village identity, about not having a head on the premises all the time, or about being guinea pigs; others see this as a chance to get a really good head, even if only half the time.

I wonder if there is potential for an iPM feature on this and other innovative ways to keep village schools viable as numbers of children fall. And what about other village institutions -- pubs, post offices, shops?

Steve Linton
The biggest mistake of your life? 6:30pm on 01 Jun 2009 What's disappointing is that the company owning the pharmacy was not prosecuted. They should have a clear legal duty (ideally on each of the directors personally, as well as the company) to ensure that they have systems in place that will prevent all reasonably foreseeable prescribing mistakes from happening. Each prescription should be checked two or three times, by different people, making sure that the label, the contents and the prescription all agree exactly. Regular "ringers" should be put into the system to test that these checks are being applied rigourously and any "near misses" should be recorded and followed-up.

Yes, it will cost a little more, but it will probably save more lives per pound spent than many high-tech drugs or medical procedures.
Not so stressed 4:52pm on 07 May 2009 I've heard it suggested that the next wave will be countries going under rather than banks. Specifically Ireland with awful consequences for the Euro zone. Is this now looking less likely or is an independent hazard?
Who benefits from rate cut? 1:40pm on 06 Nov 2008 I'm confused. Why would a bank pay your friend 7% to borrow his squillions, when, as I understand it, they can borrow squillions from the Bank of England for 3%? What have I missed?

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

stevelinton