Summertime!

I can't express to you how happy I am that assignments have been handed in and exams are over! It's been one hell of a year, making some friends for life. Now I can't wait to go on holiday! Sun, sea and the boyfriend. What more could a girl ask for? Time to enjoy!!!

Freedom!

I am happier than you will ever know right now after finishing all of the assignments. One exam left and I'm ready for the summer. Two holidays with the boyf, couldn't be better. Let's just hope I've passed them all now. Bring on freedom!!!

Toy completed!

I managed to complete my ferris wheel ready to hand in last week. That's my nephews birthday present sorted mwhahaha! It looked pretty good in the end. Nice and bright for the kids. Im very happy with it, let's just hope it passes!

Toy Progress...

My Ferris wheel is coming along swimmingly!! After making the carriages out of some green card and making tiny little benches inside them so they looked the part, I started painting two doughnut shaped plastic pieces I found in my garage which was previously on an extension cable. My dad, being an electrician and a massive hoarder already had most of the materials I needed in order to make my toy.

Further Education in Wales - Nick Bennett

Further education is typically education that is carried out after compulsory education has been completed and before higher education is started. This is anything from AS Levels, A Levels to vocational qualifications. The majority of people that are in further education are aged between 16 and 19 and can achieve their qualifications from taking a full-time or part-time course. Further education is seen as second chance education and is put in place to fulfil one’s potential. Further education colleges are independent and are run by trustees or governors. Funding of further education is provided by the Department for Education and Skills. The aim is to prepare students for working life and to support industry and also to prepare them for higher education. Colleges have a different approach to school and is not compulsory. Students attend college at their own will in order for them to further their knowledge in the world of work that they desire.

According to Colegau Cymru (2011), there are 17 further education colleges and 2 further education institutions in Wales. Some colleges specify in vocational subjects whereas others focus more on A Level subjects. Each college across Wales vary in the amount of students that choose to study there and the amount of subjects you can gain qualifications from. Problems within further education colleges arise when students remove themselves before receiving any qualifications, causing potential waste. Mergers between further education institutes happen to either create a new one or to maintain the identity of one of one of the original organisations. It is done to improve the general function of the college and has hopes that it will work better together than they have done alone. A recent merger happened in South Wales between Swansea College and Gorseinon College and became Gower College Swansea. Mergers are very expensive and are mainly done for the long-term benefits they bring. Mergers need to be well prepared in order for them to be successful. The higher the amount of students at a college, the more funding the college has. However, over the last few years funding has been stricter and has seen a massive 1.6% pay cut. Statistics from the Welsh Government website show that in 2010/2011, there were 240,370 learners at FE institutions, a reduction of 0.6% on 2009/2010. Full-time learners at FE institutions rose by 3.8% whereas part-time learning declined by 1.3% and of learning activities with known qualification levels, the proportion at level 3 rose by 3%.

The Welsh Government website states that they plan to use £750,000 to increase Welsh-medium courses in further education. The money will allow five extra colleges to join the Bilingual Champions Scheme. The aim is to increase the number of modules and courses available to learners through the medium of Welsh. Leighton Andrews says,

“Extending this scheme will develop and strengthen Welsh-medium provision in further education in line with the target set in the Welsh Government’s Welsh-medium Education Strategy. It also supports our new Welsh Language Strategy which aims to create more opportunities for people to use Welsh in every aspect of their lives.”

One of the main purposes of further education is to underpin social justice. Everyone has the right to attend further education and each one has equal opportunities regardless of race and gender. Another reason to attend further education is to support the economy. The more people learn, the more jobs there will be and the more qualifications you receive, the more economic opportunities you have.

http://www.colegaucymru.ac.uk/en-GB/home-1.aspx

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001257.htm

http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/resources/mergers.html/

http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/headlines/post16education2012/1203281/?lang=en

http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/welshlanguage/2012/120330welshmedium/?lang=en

Governing Bodies - Steve Gullick

School governing bodies work with the school to provide the best quality education that there is to offer. Anyone over the age of eighteen is eligible to become a school governor and does not need to be a parent or have any specific qualifications in order to fulfil the role. They are reappointed every four years. Depending on the size of the school, there can be as little as nine members of the governing body and as much as twenty. Governors are unpaid and work voluntarily alongside the head teacher to put in place the school’s aims and policies. Head teachers are offered a place on the governing body and are able to refuse, however most accept. This is a controversial topic as many have different views on whether or not governors should be paid. If governors were paid, they may not have a body filled with members that are passionate about what they are doing. However, as the meetings are held in their own time, some people believe that the role should not be unpaid. Governors must attend a meeting at least once each term to discuss the management of the school and should also attend school events and suitable training. A second meeting may also be held to ensure everything is looked at thoroughly. As written on the School Governors’ One Stop Shop website, the governor’s main responsibilities are:

·         Ensuring accountability

·         Acting as a ‘critical friend’ to the head teacher

·         Monitoring and evaluating the school’s progress

·         Budgetary allocation and control

·         Planning for the long term future of the school

·         Setting the school’s aims and values

·         Appointing senior members of staff including the head teacher

Governors must have an interest in the welfare of the children and must listen to other people’s views as well as making their own judgements. There are some problems that can arise within governing bodies. As there are not any special requirements needed to become a school governor and the fact that anyone is eligible, they may not have the same views. Not all of the governors will have background knowledge in education and will just have the interest of the children at heart.

http://www.schools-search.co.uk/school-governors.php
http://www.sgoss.org.uk/read-the-facts/
http://www.newham.gov.uk/educationandlearning/schools/schoolgovernors/

PISA - Andy Reynolds

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was first set up in the year 2000 and is a standardised test put in place every three years worldwide in order to evaluate education systems. PISA compares the results of students from different countries to see which ones are scoring high in reading, mathematics and science. 15 year old students from partaking schools are chosen at random and are assessed. PISA is held in countries that are members of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The assessment is carried out in three year cycles and the most recent test was performed in 2012. The results of the assessment should then be used to improve teaching strategies ready for the next test. National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) manages the PISA tests within the United Kingdom.

Wales carried out the assessment for the first time in 2006 with the test mainly focussing on science. Wales scored significantly less than what they were hoping to and had plans to change that by 2009. Unfortunately this was not the case and scored even less in all three areas or reading, mathematics and science than they did in 2006. 5 points were dropped in reading, 9 points in science and a staggering 12 points in maths. Wales also scored below the OECD average in reading and mathematics in 2009. Education Minister, Leighton Andrews (2010) described the PISA tests as a “wake-up call to a complacent system” and aims to have Wales score within the top 20 schools by 2015.

In 2009, Shanghai-China, Korea and Finland scored the highest in the performance table whereas Peru, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan scored the lowest. Finland has scored within the top 3 schools each time but yet Finnish schools allocate less homework and engage the children in more creative play. It was also noticed that there are no private schools in Finland; therefore there is no ‘extra’ teaching time to be shared amongst students. Wales ranked 38^th for reading, 40^th for mathematics and 30^th for science out of 67 countries.

So far, Leighton Andrews has put in place a statutory requirement on all qualifying teachers to be trained in literacy and numeracy and has also asked officials for initial teacher training to become a two year master course. There are many difficulties that need to be tackled in order to raise the results in the PISA tests in Wales and achieve results in the top 20 schools by 2015.

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_32252351_32235907_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/04/19/wales-at-an-education-crossroads-and-now-is-the-time-for-action-91466-30789129/

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

Bass Clef...

Symbolism

A symbol is an object, action or idea that represents something other than itself. The pictures I have used on my collage (final piece) have strong symbolism to how I feel when I am listening to music. I have found pictures that represent words like 'content, peaceful, happy, comfortable' and some others. The pictures hold emotional value to me as they depict ideas of me feeling safe and secure.

Final Piece...

My final piece, although may not look like much, has great emotional value to me. I specially selected each picture to represent exactly how I feel when I am listening to music. I cut each picture into a bubble to symbolise how I feel I disconnect from the world and the stress of everyday life. I was able to arrange the pictures into a musical note thus in keeping with the theme of music.

ICT Progress...

Part of my project will focus on lyrics and the effect they have on people. Some of my all time favourite lyrics are sung by the band 'The Script' who are an Irish soft rock band from Dublin. The group consists of Mark Sheehan, Glen Power and frontman Danny O' Donoghue. The main theme of their songs are love and break up, which seem to top the charts more than anything else as people can relate to them. I am very much a lyrics sort of person than I am one for the beat. A three minute song that writes exactly how you are feeling or have felt in the past makes you feel like you are not the only person in the world that has ever felt that way.

A Sense of Place...

Choosing a topic to work on with the theme ‘sense of place’ highlighted throughout seemed difficult initially. I wanted to choose something that I feel passionate about and would therefore enjoy working on. I decided almost automatically to explore the topic of ‘Music’ and write about that as my subject of interest. I would explore the reasons as to why, when listening, it makes me feel as if I am in my own little bubble and can escape from everyday life. I will also discuss the effect it has on others and how it makes them feel. As well as this, I will research ‘music therapy’ and how this is used medically. The project also has to contain an artist that has influenced our choice in topic. I will write about mine in my sketch book and give reasons as to why I favour them over any other artist.

ICT Project Idea...

Stressed!!!

I didn't realise how detailed the making of my toy would be and am cursing myself for trying to make the most difficult in all creation! However, if it comes out as expected, it should be bloomin' marvellous! Hopefully. I never really get the chance to get all artsy and creative so this has been a pretty fun project to do. If all goes to plan, never again will I buy presents for people...I'll just pop down to the nearest Hobby Craft and HEY PRESTO!

Toy Ideas...

I created a mind map to outweigh the positives and negatives of each toy before choosing which one to make. The three toy ideas would all be for 3-4 year olds.

Metaphores...

In our art class we spoke about metaphores and hidden meanings in songs. Pathetic fallacy is commonly used in songs today and we spent some time naming as many as we could think of that had metaphores in, to ensure we each knew what was meant by the term. Once we were sure we knew what it meant, Suzie gave each group a pack of images that were visual metaphores. We were asked to separate them into categories of our choice.

My group separated the images into categories of health, religion, music, drugs and cruelty. Certain pictures were quite disturbing to look at, especially for the faint-hearted. Most of the pictures did portray a good message though and I can see why they would be effective. My favourite was a picture of three hearts, each with a colour written inside. Yellow, black and white. This message seems to show that regardless of skin colour, everyone is the same. However, metaphores can mean different things to different people.  

A Sense of Place...

In our visual communication lesson we were told that our assignment had to include the theme of 'sense of place'. In order to brainstorm through ideas, Suzie asked us to work in groups in order to create a collage of everything that makes us feel like we have a sense of place and things that make us comfortable and happy. I worked with four of the girls on this and we managed to cover the entire sheet of paper. You could tell by looking at some of the other pieces of work that ours was a very girly view of what it means to be happy.

We had different sections on the paper relating to different topics. We had family, marriage, where we live, home, food, fashion, hobbies. We were able to find a lot of useful images and text in the magazines Suzie gave us and therefore were able to make a collage that meant a lot to us. We started by looking at images that represented our homes, such as our bedrooms, settee and the dining table and continued to expand through where we had been brought up, lived now and went to school. Sport can give people a big sense of belonging too and so we included all forms of sport we take part in.

Presentations OVER!!!

I have finally completed both presentations for Caroline and Sian. What a relief!! They weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. It's so much easier speaking to an audience you get along well with, so I'd like to thank my class for making me feel at ease! Hannah and Becca were in my group for Theories of Thinking and Learning and we practically spent HOURS creating a mind map on our studied psychologist Bruner. It looked pretty good at the end!

I personally feel that Sian's presentation could have been a little longer but I think we said most, if not all of the necessary points. I still have Sian's seminar writing piece to hand in about Bruner. I will definitely finish that soon so another weight will be off my shoulders!

Another Research Week...

Apart from the odd lie-in, this week away from university helped me to start my assignment presentation for Caroline. My group consists of Jade, Becca and Andrew. Our topic is 'Mysteries' and how tasks like these can help you learn through a variety of different subjects. We drew up a plan of what it was that we needed to research and how we were going to distribute the points evenly. We also started writing the foundations for the task that we would share with the rest of the class. In our next meeting, we would bring the ideas together and arrange them in a suitable way for us to present.

Our First Research Week...

Having a week away from university enabled me to become up-to-date with my assignments. I managed to complete a 600 word practice assignment about learning styles for Sian. I made a pretty good effort with my referencing considering it was my first time, however, there were areas I needed to improve on with it so will have to have a bit more practice. I have also made a start on Andy's 'What is Education?' assignment. For this, I have chosen to write the first half about my personal philosophy of what education is and leave the other half to explain a key policy in practice. I think the references will be what I struggle most with so will have to seek help for those!!

Graffiti...

This was made by using http://www.graffiticreator.net/

Animations...

In our ICT lesson, we were taght how to use animation on 2simple2animate. There were simple and advanced versions of the application, both pretty easy to use when you know how. Saying that, my drawing and creativity skills are TERRIBLE but I was still able to draw simple pictures and turn them into animation. An application made for me! However, I still only drew the obvious happy to sad face.

Wiki...

A wiki is a website where users can add, delete or edit its content. It's a page where people can discuss different topics and contribute to the work by adding their own views and opinions. There were various different topics for us to research, all to do with technology in different locations or time periods. My group consisted of Laura Murray, Andrew Colwill and Harley Everett and our topic to research was 'Education in the third world'. We were given questions to specifically research such as what subjects were taught, what size of classes there were and what technology was used.

We each took different angles to look at, therefore the wiki was created more efficiently. We had a front page and different pages within it explaining various areas of education in the third world. We also researched charities that helped build schools and provide the necessary technology in order to teach effectively. The wiki was a good idea as it enabled us to comment on eachother's pages and add more detail if needed. The link below is the wiki my group created:

http://es1a2011.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=Education%20in%20Third%20World%20Countries

Presentations!!!

Presentations aren't my favourite form of assessment but I suppose it's something that has to be done! Having already done Pam's numeracy presentation, I feel a little bit relieved to have one already out of the way. I was given another two presentations within a week of eachother, one for Caroline and one for Sian. I have two lovely groups for each, both from my circle of friends in uni. At the moment, Sian's presentation sounds more appealing to me than Caroline's but that may change as time goes on.

I must start my preparation for both presentations soon in order to keep on track. Both groups plan to meet up at some point next week so perhaps then i'll have more of an idea as to what it is we have to do!

My Placement

I thoroughly enjoyed my week at Llangyfelach Primary. It was great to go back there after all these years and see how everything has changed. Considering the long days, it didn't once feel like a job but more of an interest. The children were brilliant and the teachers were welcoming, helping me fit in rather quickly. As it was near Christmas, the whole school was rehearsing for their school concert so was difficult to see a great deal of learning within the classroom. However, I was still able to read with individuals which gave me more of an insight into the everyday routine. Half way through the week I was told I would be joining the class on a school trip to the church, where I think I was more excited than the children. Here, I was able to see how differently learning was when outside the classroom.

Having been given tasks to complete on the observation week, I made myself more aware of my surroundings and took note on all the different learning styles. The school seemed to cater well for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. The teacher would tell the class exactly what the task was whilst also having it projected on the whiteboard asking questions in order to repeat instruction. Then the teacher would allow the children to carry out the task, allowing them to use the computer or books for research.

The week fuelled my want to become a primary teacher and has given me the motivation to succeed.

Tagxedo

This is my soppy little cupid that I created on Tagxedo. It allows you to type in as many words as you like and you can then choose a design you would like the words to fit into. So I chose Lurrrrve!