Guest Lecturer - Dr Russel Grigg

This post will look into Russell Griggs lecture on EYSTYN. Eystyn is the welsh inspectorate authority in education, it is in place to inspect standards in education and training providers in wales. Such institutions could be: -Nursery, Primary, Secondary, Independant and Special schools -Pupil referal units -Further Education -Adult Community Learning -LEA Services for young people -Teacher education and training -Work based learing -Offender learning ( Criminals) Eystyn provide the welsh assembly government with advice on quality and standards of education and training in Wales; and promote the spread of good practice in education and training. The purpose of Eystyn is to provide accountability for standards of education, whilst allowing for improvement and development in education and training as well as government policy. The main voices of Eystyn are the inspectors themselves, Learners, Teachers, Parents and Governors. The Framework of the reports Eystyn publish are as follows: Two types,Thematic and Annual Reports Thematic Reports - Yearly the Education Minister asks the Chief Inspector for advice on a range of subjects in relation to education and training to help development of educational policy. Annual Reports - Annual Reports provide a broad picture of standards and performance of educational institutes in Wales. Regular inspections in schools makes sure that children are being taught the right way, and will ensure they are working to their full potential.

Guest Lecturer - Jane Davidson

This post will look over the lecture delivered by Jane Davidson on her "learning country" and how education has progressed over the years. Jane Davidson was tin the position of Minister for Education for 7 years, she has seen first hand the changes within the educational system over the years. Jane discusses Margret Thatcher's National Curriculum which was put in place in 1983 by one, which prior to teachers decided what was taught in their classrooms. The initial plan for the national curriculum was visioned that the whole country would be learning the same subjects at the same time. Teachers opposed this new decision, they felt they were losing their freedom. Between the years of 1983 and 1997 there were improvements shown in education, the system was now structured, however education at this point was not focused on learning/being educated - more on being trained to fit what the government thinks you should know; showing the National Curriculum to be overly restrictive. The modernized national curriculum subjects have been revised and restructured. The purpose of these changes is to identify the skills for each subject and the range of contexts, opportunities and activities through which these skills should be developed and applied. The content has also been updated to ensure relevance to the twenty-first century and manageability for learners and teachers - Welsh Government(2008) From the appointment of a Labour government in 1997, Tony Blair coined the phrase "Education, Education and Education." His appointment to govern proves pivotal to modern education in England and Wales. A vote took place in 1997 to allow wales their own national assembly which was passed in 1999. Blair recognized that educational policy may need to differ between England and Wales to tailor specific needs. Davidson goes on to stress the importance of education in our current global situation. Education can be seen as a route away from poverty, as an individual - which in turn benefits the country through generation of wealth in turn increasing our Gross Domestic Product(GDP) figures. Davidson's (2012) vision was for wales to: "...become internationally renowned as a Learning Country: a place which puts learners' interests first; offers wider access and opportunities for all; aspires to excellence across the board; and which will not settle for second best in making lifelong learning a reality" (p.1) This shows the importance of my previous post on communities first and widening access. The idea for the learning country document was to put in place a 10 year plan for the educational system in wales, even though assembly members are only elected for 4 years. This is because a long term structure is needed as the system cannot change every 4 years! Davidson then mentions a part about the Foundation Phase and how it is in place to be a constant framework for education in wales no matter change in assembly members. Overall this was a very interesting lecture, factual yet captivating. References: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/schoolshome/curriculuminwales/arevisedcurriculumforwales/nationalcurriculum/?lang=en Welsh Government (2008) Davidson, J. The LEarning Country (2000) http://moodle.smu.ac.uk/file.php/904/the_learning_country.pdf The Learning Country.

Guest Lecturer - Alice Davies

This post will discuss Alice Davies lecture on widening access to higher education in Wales. Alice belongs to the South West Wales Reaching Wider Consortium, who define widening access as "increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds. The aim of the consortium is to provide equality through increasing the amount of people from under represented social groups inside higher education. These groups are: - People from specific black and ethnic minority communities - People with disabilities - People from low income families - People from Communities First wards - Looked After Children and Care leavers The main areas where these groups exist and Reaching Wider target are called communities first areas. Communities first areas are the 100 most deprived areas in wales as derived from the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (2000). This index looks at income, health, employment, housing, education and access to services. The Communities First programme is designed to encourage partnership within communities, "Communities First can enable and encourages Public Sector, Third Sector and Private sector organisations to work together to achieve common goals." Welsh Government (2012). So in turn the benefit received by the individual is also felt in the economy, as the community works together becoming more economically productive. Alice then went on to discuss a body named HEFCW - the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. Their job is to allocate monetary resources in all aspects of higher education in Wales, e.g: - Fee planning (Justification as to why the amount of money is viably charged in fees, and also what the money is to be reinvested in.) - Widening Access Premium (the educational institute receives funding if students come from community first situations) - Widening Access strategy funding - Reaching Wider. HEFCW (2006) describe reaching wider as "a long-term widening access initiative. It aims to improve learning skills and educational aspirations to enable more school-aged pupils and adults to study at university or college." Alice then went on to explain about the regional partnerships that are in place between; North and Mid Wales, South East Wales and finally South West Wales. We are part of the South West partnership which includes Swansea, Pembrokeshire, Camarthenshire and Neath - Port Talbot. Within the partnership are Further Educational institutions, Higher Educational institutions, Careers Wales, Local Authorities and Communities First. The partnerships have been put in place to encourage students to take up higher education, combat social disadvantages and improve achievement. Widening access seems like a concept of equality, and has been allowing disadvantaged students entry to higher education from a number of years, however widening access to the upper echelon of universities seems hard to achieve from such social deprivation. In summary the policy allows for equality, but question the quality of the higher education achieved at the end of it all. Overall this lecture provided a good insight into what needs to be done to provide equality to all social groups in getting to higher education. References: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/housingandcommunity/regeneration/communitiesfirst/?lang=en. Welsh Government. (2012) http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/documents/news/press_releases/2006%20press%20releases/23.05.06%20reaching%20out%20to%20raise%20aspirations.pdf HEFCW (2006)

Guest Lecturer - Steve Gullick

Our original lecturer for the What is Education? module Andy Reynolds was unfortunately said to be ill, so instead a myriad of guest lecturers have been put in place for us to reflect upon. This post will discuss Steve Gullicks lectures on the governing bodies of schools/ educational institutions. The role of being a Governor in a school is a voluntary one, as budget doesnt allow for this role to be paid, however travel expenses can be claimed. According to Steve many govenors are so passionate about their part in schools that they do not claim their expenses as they believe this money could be spent on bettering the school. Within the governing body of the school lies different types of goveners: - Authority governors - Community governors - Parent governors - Staff governors - Student governors The combined efforts of these people provide governance on key aspects of their educational institution, they are required to - Encourage high academic standards - Manage the curriculum (tailor it to the schools needs) - Make decisions on staff regarding pay or children to staff ratio. And arguably the most important role of the governing body is to manage the schools financial budget in all aspects, whether it be government funded or not. They are required to allocate resources efficiently and fairly on everything that the school does ranging from new textbooks/ learning resources to maintenance of campus/ classrooms. Steve goes on to talk about the idea of a debate in how governing staff should be selected, at the moment it is a voluntary system where governors are elected from parents of children from the school (stakeholders in the school as their children are in this educational establishment) and staff. But he proposes the idea of a system when paid professionals take governance. Is it that parents that care so dearly for thier children could be truely in touch with what the school needs? Or that they are unskilled and that professionals trained in governance could perform this job more efficiently? The chief of Ofsted Sir Michael Wilshaw (2012) believes that: "When schools do poorly or badly, it's not just the issue of the school leader, the head and the school leadership team, it's the way the governors have held the leadership to account." And that "...when a school is doing poorly, we need to think about paid governance." This shows that one of the top educational figures in Briton believes that paid governance is necessary for failing schools, meaning that if schools fail to elect successful governors professionalism is the only route out. This would allow for schools to attempt their own governance which should be allowed, and bringing in professionals could be useful to set up a successful framework from which elected governors could take up running. References: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17204548

Final piece

Project Statement

Sense of place. This assignment was designed for me to find my sense of place in the world and portray it via visual means. To start of this assignment I needed to find an idea of where this place could be. After much thought and deliberation I knew that music was my passion, but I then felt it difficult to incorporate the subject into my work. I started to assemble my life long experience with music to see what ideas could be drawn from it, coming to the realization that live music has played a huge part to my childhood. I went on to look at photos of old gigs and listen to music that reminded me of the good experiences i have had to give me inspiration. Music has been inspiration to me for many years so I was able to pull up many resources about it. I felt that being inside a crowd of people that all appreciate the same thing to really be my sense of place, yet I also believe that everyone inside that crowd will have their individual experiences alongside my own. After my research into my own history with music, it became clear that over the years my appreciation for music stayed constant but everything else in my life was changing. It became clear to see that there was a real relationship between my musical taste and my friendship groups over the years. Progressing through genres of music I could see myself fitting the social stereotypes to match them - starting with Metal music where I was only wearing black clothing and had abnormally long hair; then Rock music where I obtained my love of skateboarding, finally onto dance music where I found myself to be spending all my money trying to see every DJ i could. Through my change in taste of music I would say my sense of place changed alongside it, music being the one subject staying the same but everything else seemed to be transforming in front of me. After these thoughts I turned my attention to assembling the images I would use in my scrapbook. I tried to find images that define me at key moments in my life as my tastes were changing. I felt an emotional connection with these pictures reminding me of why I picked up music as a hobby. I went on to use googles picasa programme to edit the images before printing to put in my scrapbook. At this point I felt a strong connection with my sense of place, and how music has been the embodiment of it throughout my life. I began thinking of ideas for a final piece, which aims to use my 4 most important musical items to portray an image of how much music means to me. In my piece Iused cables to spell the word music as I believe music is the connector to my sense of place, I also used a switched on lamp for the letter I in music to put across an impression that music is my inspiration, my light in the dark as it were. Using Picasa again I was able to edit my final image, cropping it and using an effect to make the picture look old fashioned. To conclude, this project has allowed me to be creative in relevance to a subject that means more to me than any other. It has deepened my self understanding in how I have progressed through the years, whilst allowing me to see my true sense of place. Hopefully my scrapbook shows the intimate journey music has taken me on, and why I came to chose my final piece. I researched images of myself and others to try and inspire my own work. However if I could do this project again and if I could afford music production software, I would have made a track to accompany my final piece - which would have given it a more personal feel. I felt limitations to the amount of ICT i could have used to portray an image which shows my musical interest - but googles picasa programme helped me to edit my images nicely. Overall I felt this project was averagely successful - my letdown was inside ICT>

Vis Com assignment. - Inspiration

Whilst trying to assemble my final piece i felt something was missing. I saw this image and it gave me an idea to write a word with my leads and cables as i think it will add to the visual effects of my piece (give the picture a click). cool beans :)

Vis Com assignment. Thoughts.

After much thought i have decided on what i want to achieve for my final piece. I want to create a powerful image that has meaning. On my topic of music I have decided i would like to use the objects that mean the most to me musically, so i have gathered these items and began experimenting in ways to arrange them to make an interesting photograph. I am encountering some difficulty in trying to find space to arrange all of the items in a manner i am happy with but I am pleased with the overall idea :)

Suzie Pugh - Branding

Here is a short presentation i put together about branding and the meaning/ thought process behind it.

Vis Com assignment.

We have been given an assignment on our sense of place. I interpreted that as where we feel we fit in. Initially it was hard to develop an idea of where i felt i fit in, but one thing i knew always meant alot to me is music. I aim to incorporate my love of music into my project, showing how it has been important to me and how it embodies my sense of place on planet earth!

Evaluation. Mandy Peace

Evaluation of Group presentation given on sharks.(Sharks R Us) Positive elements - Communication of key points - Good range of information - Every member participated in the activity Elements for development - Answer questions more confidently - More connection with the audience when delivering the presentation.

Suzie Pugh Seminar - Vis Com

In this seminar we were required to bring in items that held meaning to us. I brought my skateboard, a plectrum, my computer mouse (to represent my computer) and headphones. After this we layed the objects on the floor in sections then discussed our chosen favorite object. It was good to validate my own reasoning for choosing my skatebord by giving feedback to the class, it brought back many happy memories :)

Tagxedo. Mandy Peace

We had a seminar based upon the useage of pictures to represent words, and we then explored creative methods of applying this. I opted for use of the tagxedo website to embed an image into my blog. I used the image of a bass clef as music is a strong interest to me. I went on to use a soundcloud page of one of the artists i like to make up the words to in turn make the picture out of. tagxedo is an interesting, eyecatching way of using a picture to represent words.