Project

Today im just going over my statement and evaluation just to make sure that everything is right and makes sense. I went down the beach yesterday to collect shells to add to my final piece, and stick sand onto my card dase that my final piece is attacked to. This was sooo tricky as the wind was blowing and the sand flying everywhere and was sticking to the places on the card i didnt want it to. But in the end it turned out fine and looks really good. I hope my final is going to turn out as good as i image it will in my head.

project - Swansea

Finally iv been able to log on!! Havent been able to get on to my blog for ages! Soo iv practically finished my project now and its looking really good. Iv stuck mostly everything into my journal and its all come together really nicely. Thoughout doing this iv been able to really remenis some of my childhood memories that id forgot! Iv really enjoyed looking though old photos of me and my family in places in Swansea and where iv grown up. And remembering all the places i used to like going and spending time. Iv learnt lots about Swansea and its background.

Im now mainly focusing on my final piece

Project

Soo for my project I'v decided to do where I Live Swansea. Iv planned out what I intend my project to be about and include. Iv done a few mind maps to help me gather lots of information and ideas about Swansea and what my thoughts are about whats good about living here and why I like it, and also all the things I like doing.

From here Im going to be starting putting all my planning and ideas into my book.

What is ED

Mike Day (cabinet member for Education in Swansea). The topic of this lecture was educational policy.

Educational policy was described as 'guidelines for actions to achieve goals and objectives. Specific aims to be achieved and desired end results. It reflects on political opinions, traditions and values, and socio-economic objectives. It's over a long time scale and discusses fundamental choices'.

 

What is education for?

• Create a workforce
• Transmit values and beliefs
• Keep people off the streets
• Tool for social mobility
• Produce 'rounded' individuals

Major questions

• What should be the school compulsory age?
• Should school be free?
• Should it be selective?
• SEN? Include in mainstream? Seperate?

Why is it needed?

• Guides opertionl decisions and actions
• Teacher in the classroom, what to do?
• Guidelines or straight jacket?

Who should develop it?

• Politicians - elected to represent people. They hold the 'purse strings' and are not subject experts.
• Practicioners - Know how it works in practice, from a different perspective but unable to take the wider view.
• Should be a meeting of minds (Between the two)

Where is it developed?

• UK Level (Westminster) - Determines compulsory school age, teachers pay and conditions, responsbility of LEA's, parents and schools.

• WAG - Welsh medium, foundation phase, schools, no SAT's or free tuition fees and pupil deprivation grant.

• LEA - Organise and determine size and number of schools we have. Advice and guidnce to schools adn identifies where and how many children (of compulsory age) are missing education within their area

• School and Governing body - Uniforms, start and school finish times, child protection, SEN equal opportunities, school improvement plans, personal and social education.

• Where do regional groups fit in? - 4 introduced from this September. SWAMWAC, Focus on school improvement, standards, learner and wellbeing.

How is it developed?

• Policy borrowing - searches internationl examples of unique, transferrable 'best practice'

• Policy learning - development of tailored national policies rather than policies taken off the peg, they also learn from the countries history.

• QEd Policy 2020

Raise standards of acievement and attainment

Quality of the learning environment

Make best use of human, physical and financial resources

Stakeholder engagement copeness and partnership

Coherance (Consistency with wider educational strategies and support of other council strategies)

Flexibility (Appropriate use of resources)

Objectivity (Use of robust assessment framework)

Cost effectiveness

Resourced

What is Ed

Olive Hopker

This lecture was taken by Olive Hopker, who is the Head of Planning and Development in Swansea Metropolitan University. The topic of the lecture was about Collaboration-V-Competition in education. Some of the aspects that were spoken about are as followed:

Ministerial statements
Employment and Governance Structure in Wales
Collabortion and Competition Issues
Regional Planning and the role of HEFCW (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales)
Benefits and limitations for HEI (Higher Education Institute)

We were also examples of government statements, mostly from Leighton Andrews,which was beneficial for Schools / Further Education Sector and Higher Education.

ICT assignment

ICT Assignment

After finding it so hard to grasp what the assignment was actually about and what we had to do I am enjoying doing it so much now. I have kept my first idea I had which was to do fashion becase I love everything to do with fashion. I thought it would be different to look at fashion in unorthadox materials, this would mean looking at Trashion Fashion where fashion items have been created from materials like paper, plastic all things you wouldnt imagine being made into pieces of clothing you could wear, its amazing!. I find this so interesting and thought it would be a really good opportunity with his project to show how I can design and create different pieces and samples using all different materials. 

What is ED - Ken Jones

Ken Jones

Our Guest lecturer for the 9^th January was Professor Ken Jones. In this lecture he spoke about the local authorities in education and issues with their size and capacity. Children Act 2004 states ‘A local education authority (LEA) is a local authority in England and Wales that has responsibility for education within its jurisdiction.’ He began the lecture by talking about the population in Wales and how 50% of the population lives in the South and the South East of Wales.

There are currently twenty two local education authorities in Wales. Prior to the re-organisation in 1999 there were only 8 local authorities in Wales. In England, authorities are divided up into district councils which differ from Welsh authorities as they are ‘on a more local level, community and town councils provide services in their immediate areas.’ (Welsh government).

Democratic elections are held every four years to decide who has a place in each local authority. Welsh Government states ‘Local authorities have a cabinet-style executive with the dominant political group or coalition making decisions under the scrutiny of the council as a whole.’ Welsh Unitary authorities spend up to seven million year; the majority of it is paid by the Welsh Government with council tax making up the remainder of the bill.

Number’s of pupils in La maintained schools decrease year after year, which unfortunately can lead to redundancies and closure of schools. There are a number of schools in Wales that have fewer than 90 pupils who attend and the smaller the school is the more expensive it becomes to fund every child , this makes the school more expensive to run. The Local authorities have not got enough money to keep these particular small schools open. (Cost of small primary schools in Wales)

In 2006, the PISA confirmed that Wales had made progress, compared to other countries, but they needed to do even better. Due to this, the Welsh Assembly Government introduced the School Effectiveness Framework. The Welsh Assembly Government say that "The School Effectiveness Programme will coordinate all of the good work that is already being carried out in order to improve learning and wellbeing for all of our school aged children and young people in Wales." They also say that "The Framework describes the key characteristics required to build on existing good practice and improve children’s and young people’s learning and wellbeing throughout Wales, and each partner’s contribution to securing that."

References - http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/publications/guidance/schooleffectivenessframework/?lang=en - 16/03/12http://www.sefcymru.org/eng/sef-p2-home/sef-p2-about-sef/sef-p2-about-sef-2/sef-p2-sef-doc.htm - 16/03/12http://wales.gov.uk/topics/localgovernment/localauthorities/?lang=en - 16/03/12

Estyn by Dr Russell Grigg

Todays in Andys lecture we had a guest speaker called Russell Grigg who is head of South West Wales centre of teacher education. From this lecture we learnt about the company estyn.
Estyn is a company that:
● inspects quality and standdards in education and training providers in Wales
● Nursery, primary, secondary, independent ans special needs
● Pupil referral units
● Further education
● Adult community learning
● Local authority education services for children and young people
● Teacher education and training
● Work-based learning

ESTYN inspect a considerable amount of educational facilities such as nurseries, primary, secondary, independent, adult community learning, local authority services for children and young people, teacher education and training, work based learning, career companies and offender learning. ESTYN also inspects higher education for instance Universities and colleges. (ESTYN)

Furthermore ESTYN ‘provide advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on quality and standards in education and training in Wales and promote the spread of good practice in education and training.’ (ESTYN)

The role of ESTYN is to write reports on the schools they have inspected in order for the schools to make progress and improve on their standards. The ESTYN report framework covers areas such as standards, well-being, learning experiences, teaching, care, support and guidance, learning environment, leadership, improving quality, partnership working and resource management.

The reports are accommodating for parents who want to see how their child’s school is performing. Also it is helpful for the community, parliament to know the educational establishments that are performing well and those that are not in order for them to be worked on so they have improved quality and standards. The inspection reports likewise help schools as it informs them on what they are doing well and what aspects of the school need to be improved on. ESTYN states that ‘The purpose of inspection is to identify good features and shortcomings so that education and training providers can improve the quality of education they offer and raise the standards achieved by their learners’

References
ESTYN http://www.estyn.gov.uk/english/about-us/role-and-remit/. Retrieved 16th April 2012

Placement

On placement, i attened Gowerton Primary school. For the first half of the week i was in year 3. I enjoyed every moment of my time there and got so much experience. I learnt about different teaching methods and how the teacher I was with dealt with certain puplis in different ways to others. As my placement was over the christmas period mostly everday I was there was based around doing the christmas concerts, making christmas cards and other christmas based activities. For the second half of the week I was in the juniors. I found being there I was able to view more teaching techniques within maths and english. The class had done most of their practices for their christmas already so I didnt have to rush back and forth to the hall. Im looking at trying to get in another school for more experience soon.