What's happening in 2009?

The new year has started with the introduction of Gaelic to the network. This came about as a result of a meeting I had with Morag Campbell at the Scottish Funding Council in November. She indicated that Gaelic practitioners would really appreciate a forum where they could share and access information and take part in online discussions. We have started in a small way by adding some information to Practitioners Plus and signposting the online discussion forum. The response so far has been really good and I am hoping that word will spread and there will be more activity.
I am in the process of discussions with COLEG to set up an online resource repository for all subjects in the network - I think this could be useful for our new Gaelic colleagues too. My hope is that practitioners would be able to contribute and access resources in a fairly straightforward way. It is in response to feedback I have received from colleagues.
I attended the fourth meeting of the ESOL Curriculum Working Party last Friday and we are now moving ahead with the Framework in time for the launch of the ESOL Curriculum in April.
SQA have published Exemplars for HN Spanish for Work: Basic Operational which should be really helpful for people delivering this relatively new unit. It can be accessed via the secure site.
The final meeting of the Scottish Bacalaureate Design Team is next Thursday where exemplars for the Inter-Disciplinary Project will be considered. This should be a very interesting session.
SQA are also organising events for the ESOL for Work units in February. These will be take place in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Dumfries and are probably aimed mainly at FE. Information is on the SQA website.