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.

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!!