One Hundred Days

The recent announcement by Michael Gove outlining the process for setting up Free Schools, also set out a plan for reallocating £50 million of funding from the Harnessing Technology Grant to create a Standards and Diversity Fund. This is to provide provide capital funding for Free Schools up to 31 March 2011. A further reduction was announced yesterday to take this year’s funding down by a further £50m, allowing schools to reconfigure their broadband and IT infrastructure projects onto a more sustainable funding model

For the Harnessing Technologies Team in Northamptonshire, this news will almost certainly lead to cuts in services and/or personnel, the details of which will become clearer over the coming days and weeks. My own position, as Harnessing Technologies Manager for Schools, hangs in the balance but I feel reasonably comfortable with that situation. Examining budgets, projects and services in close detail is actually proving very good for prioritising ideas and projects. Job uncertainty is most unpleasant but it does focus the mind on making the most of every professional opportunity to make a positive difference to the learning of Northamptonshire’s young people.

The notion of a first “hundred days” is an artificial creation of Franklin Roosevelt after he became American president in 1932 in the Great Depression. It has become a benchmark for evaluating the early success of a president. No great depression here, but benchmarking success or otherwise in my last hundred days in Northants might prove an interesting and potentially cathartic experience.