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.

Lesson

In todays lesson I have made my own wikki page I thought it was going to be really complicated to do but I found it quite easy once id started. My groups subject was Education of the past 30 years. My topic is What was technology like 30 years ago? I did some research on this on the internet and found out loads of information that I didnt know that put on my wikki page. I enjoyed reseaching in this lesson and learning new things :)

Project

Its taken me ages to finally come up with a topic that I am going to do for my project. My project is going to be on fashion using unorthadox materials this means using materials that you wouldnt normally use or see as clothing or fashion pieces, to come up with a final piece. I'm really looking forward to starting this project as I feel its quite a simalar approach to the textiles course i took in college but with MUCH more writing!!

Reflective learning

my first presentation

My group for the presentation consisted of Natalie,Amy,Amy and myself. For our presentation we decided to research Andy Warhol a famous artist because we all shared an interest in his work especially the painting that he created of Marilyn Monroe. To decide on the website we were going to use we typed in Andy Warhol into google, we looked at some of the websites that came up and decided on the one that we all thought was the best which was an Andy Warhol museum. Even though this was a museum and not specifically Andy Warhol's actual website it consisted all the information about him and practically everything you would need to know. We thought the website was really usful and we found out that it had been updated not so long ago so we found that reliable. We thought to make the website better it should have a feed back page for people to leave information about the museum so people can look if people enjoyed going. Overall we gave the website 9/10. I think our presentation went okay we all worked well together to get as much inforamtion as we could for the presentation.