Final piece for project

So i've finished my final piece for the project, and i'm really pleased with the result. Basically, it is a canvas print that i've made look like a shop window (relating to fashion) and i've drawn one skinny almost anorexic mannequin and on the other side i have drawn a curvy mannequin (based on my size). The skinny mannequin is shaded with pencil to make it look pale with dull clothes, the curvy mannequin has got a colourful dress which shows how happy it is being bigger. I have also glued newspaper clippings amongst the drawings related to the topic.

All in all, i'm really pleased with the final piece and my sketchbook

Thanks!

Push Up Energy Drink

Task for Suzie

A few weeks ago, Suzie set us a task to do with the topic of branding. The task was to create a branded product, her example was for jam, and create a poster and then think of the age group etc that it is intended for.

So in a group, we decided on an energy drink for our aged group, and it is called 'Push Up' as it pushes up your energy.

We put pictures on the poster of stresses that it could help to get rid of as you're more alert.

A copy of the poster will be uploaded next.

Mind Map for Project using bubbl.us

Final idea for project

Well i've finally come up with an idea for my project which I think is different and interesting. So i'm going to discuss Fashion and Body Image, and whether one affeects the other.

I can definitely relate to both topics, and they fit into my sense of place as body image is a huge factor in my life, and i also love fashion.

I will talk about fashion, designers, their influence, models etc, and then talk about celebrities and their impact on us with their diets etc.

This will be a lot of fun to research and to put into the sketchbook, just have to think of a final piece now ......

Ideas for project

So, I have had many deifferent ideas on what to do for my project. First of all I thought of doing something on my family, where we live etc, but although my family means a lot to me I could not think of something to link in to sense of place.

Then I thought about doing something relating to jewellery, as i love buying new jewellery and wearing them out for the first time.

Another idea I had was to talk about comfort in my life, whether that is at home or with friends etc.

With all these ideas, I will have to work out which one will give me enough information to put into the sketchbook and to make a final piece

What is ed lecture

Hey all! This week we had probably the best lecture so far this term for What is Education, and that was with Jane Davidson, who used to be Minister for Education, and is now involved with Trinity College. She talked briefly about the history of education in government then about why she and others wrote The Learning Country in 2001.
1983 - National Curriculum founded by Thatchers government. She wanted upils to have the same experience wherever in the country. There was massive opposition from teachers as their freedom of how and what to teach would be comprimised. The government then devised the SAT's tests which would be sat three times at the ages of 7, 11 and 14. They did this as everyone would be assesed using the same test. The new curricuum was based on structures and the government were confident on the level of learning.

1997 - change of government to Labour. They thought that between 1983 and 1997 education was too structured and it was training not educating children, and that there was no freedom to learn. People were angry at the time due to the opinion that children were being taught for tests, and that childrens ability to engage in learning was going backwards. So in Wales in 1997 the referendum for the National Assembley was introduced and was put into place in 1999.

This is when the Welsh government decided to take action on Education, originally there was 2 ministers; one for pre 16's and one for post 16's education. In 2000 Rhodri Morgan became the 1st Minister for Education. Jane became minister in 2000 and helped to develop The Learning Country, as the structured education system needed to be changed. It focused on help for learners or the next stage and what you wanted to do in life.

We also found out that The Learning Country was a 10 year strategy (2001-2010) as it takes time for it to develop and sustain. 90% of this is still in education today and still underpins the government's views on education.

All in all a brilliant lecture, toodles!

Visual communication with Suzie

Hey all! during our last session with Suzie she told us about branding and how it is developed etc. We looked at pictures that were parts of famous logos, and we had to guess what they were, e.g: Mars Bar, Virgin etc. She then showed us a presentation on how to brand a product, her example was Jam. Including the different thought processes involved.

She also set a task in groups where we had to brand a product of our choice and to make a poster of it. This is due in after the easter holidays.

That's all for now, toodles!

What is ed lecture

Hey all! Yesterday we had lecture with Alice Davies who is involved with South West Wales Reaching Wider Partnership. She described Widening access (WA) as increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to benefit from HE.  
Why?

• Social classes A, B and C1 dominate HE, and Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) shows that poverty persists.  
• black and ethnic minority communities
• disabled
• low income families
• looked after children and care leavers
• Communities first wards - WIMD (2000) looked at income, employment, health, education, housing, and access to services. Found that 100 areas were most deprived.

HEFCW (HE Funding Council Wales) and WA funding

• fee planning
• WA premium (disabled or low income)
• WE strategy funding
• Reaching wider - established in 2002 by HEFCW - to look after young people, deprived areas, care leavers, disabled, ethnic and welsh speakers

3 Regional partnerships: North and Mid, 1st campus North East and South East. Members: HE, FE, LEA's, carers wales, 3rd sector and communities 1st

Aims:

• encourge progression to HE
• assist achievement
• severe social advantage
• raise aspirations
• raise attainment

progressive programme

• primary > arts in action, STEM workshops (science)
• year 7 > literacy support
• year 9 > ACE days (Aiming for College Education), mentoring, saturday clubs and technocamps
• year 10 > spring school in uni for the comprehensive schools, STAR days (Study To Achieve Results), taste of uni or college life days and saturday clubs
• year 11 > GCSE revision, college taster days, study skills sessions and mentoring.
• year 12 > subject specific summer schools (law, modern foreign language through the medium of welsh and medical engineering), summer uni (4 weeks, range of subjects, skills for HE, 60 UCAS points/grade reduction), retention focussed activities, and insprational talks.
• year 13 > UCAS support for summer uni cohort 

Enhancing the undergraduate experience: work experience, paid work and volunteering, sign posting function and student residences in schools.

LAC (look after children) and care leavers: homework clubs, wellbeing courses, performing arts / communication workshops, talks to foster carers and social workers, and publications.

BME (black and ethnic minority) communities, gypsy and travellers, local community group > eyst (ethnic youth support team), african community centre.

Outcomes:

• GCSE results
• attendance
• retention in FE
• progression to HE
• impact measurement

Future:

• Contextual admissions? (your area, uni etc)
• more HE in FE?
• more part time study / distance learning?
• more adult education?

What is ed lecture

Hey all! Two weeks ago we had a lecture with Nick Bennett who is the Principle of Gower College, and he talked to us about Further Education (FE) Policy in Wales. He told us a great deal of interesting facts on FE, here they are:
What's it for?

• widening access
• second chance
• cultural awareness
• civic duty
• financial support
• fulfillment of potential
• community regeneration

Support economy:

• employer engagement
• work based learning
• vocational qualifications
• knowledge exploitation
• business generation
• workforce development
• international partnership
• entrepreneurship

Together it brings: teaching and learning, equal opportunities, nnovation, welsh medium, progression, flexible, tailored and local.

College statistics:

• 2009/10 - 184,730 learners (6,866 HE, 15,790 work based learners)
• 95% from Wales
• offer 5,000 different qualifications, over 6,000 courses available in Wales, majority sit 600 courses.
• almost 2x as many 16-19 year olds in college than schools
• 68% of FE students aged over 19 / 32% under 19
• 20% of FE students full time, 80% part time
• whole FE sector receives over £350,000,000 a year from WAG
• most common courses are care/personal development e.g.: hairdressing, daycare etc and I.T.

WAG programme September 2011 (Reflects the views of the minister on education):

• improve FE and HE
• encourage further mergers and enable closer collaboration
• reform the governance of FE in Wales
• work with FE providers to establish a new strategic funding mechanism
• maintain commitment to provide financial support to lower income students
• ensure that borrowing for the cost of tuition fees for students who are Welsh remains uncharged
• establish a single strategic planning and funding body for HE
• embed the university of the head of the valleys

Improving welsh skills for employment:

• establish Jobs Growth Wales, offering training and employment
• increase apprenticeship
• introduce a successor to the skill build programme to provide routes to employment
• evaluate current post 16 basic skills activity and define policy too influence future deivery

December 2011 budget:

• raise standards of education and training provision, attainment and infrastructure across Wales
• deliver a suitably skilled workforce with high quality opportunities for all learners
• improve economic and social wellbeing and reducing inequality through education and training
• see welsh language in wales

Priorities for FE sector - from Leighton Andrews

• promote individual progression through stages of learning and into sustainable jobs
• maintain volume of learning activity at current rate
• raise standards and improve learners literacy and numeracy
• increase amount of Welsh medium / bilingual learning in support of Welsh medium education strategy (WAG)

Everything in FE sectors are under review, everything is changing e.g.: funding, courses available, fees etc. 2012 is the year of reviews (Looking at):

• national planning and funding system
• age group of 14-19 sector
• HE in FE
• Qualifications - availability, number, trusted and understood, appropriate assesments, clear progression, modules exams taken out, no more coursework, one exam at the end of 2 years.

Progression

• 1979 > 40 colleges
• 2009 > 25 colleges
• 2012 > 17 colleges
• 2020 > 10 + other configurations > merge
• 2012 > 18 FE colleges in Wales

He concluded with:

• effecient
• lacks coherance
• high quality
• lead change
• changes lives

What is ed lecture

Hey all!
Last weeks lecure for What is Ed? was with Mike Day; who is a cabinet member for Education in Swansea. The topic of this lecture was educational policy.

He described educational policy 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

That's all for that lecture, toodles!

Photographs of my particular emotion

Visual communication with Suzie

Hey everyone!

Last lesson with Suzie we were told that we had to think of a particular emotion e.g: Happy, and then we had to go around the uni either individually or in groups an take photos of anything that we thought represented that emotion, e.g: people laughing.

So i will upload my images, and im not going to say what the emotion is till next week!

Toodles!

Martin Luther King - I Have A Dream

What is ed lecture

Hey everyone! Today's guest lecturer for What is Ed was Graham Allen, who is the Environmental Manager in Swansea Metropolitan University and he talked about Sustainable Education. He talked a great deal about the many parts of Sustainable Education, here are some of the points he made:

• Education is critical for promoting sustainable development.
• Agenda 21 (Clarifies and extends ability, encourages students to reflect, debate and form opinions

Coporate responsibility involves:

• Coroporate strategy
• Integration
• Management
• Performance and impact
• Community
• Environment
• Market Place
• Work Place

Digression: The benefits of growth involves:

• Employment
• Income increases
• Decrease in poverty
• Improves standards of living
• Economic stability
• Creativity
• Innovation

GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
Causes:War

• Deforestation
• Crime
• Pollution

Not included:

• Loss of natural resources
• Caring work
• Womens work

Employment

• Sharing work hours
• Higher working hours means less marginal benefit
• Shorter working
• hours means more jobs and more leisure time.

Political Strategy

• The public can be part of the trnssition to sustainable society
• Global down-turn is in part a result of avoiding the inevitable signs
• Public need leadership to work towards sustinability
• National Assembly has a duty to promote sustainable development in everything that it does

And the principles of embedding sustainable development as a central organising principle

• Long termism
• Integration
• Involvement

5 themes of ESDGC (Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship):

1. Links between society, economy, environment and our lives
2. Rights for the present and future generations
3. Relationship between power, resources and human rights
4. Local and global implications
5. Actions individuals cn take in response to the implications

Welsh Government recommends that ESDGC continues to be delivered through:

• Leadership
• Learning nd teching
• Practice within an HEI
• Partnership and community working
• Research

Finally! The three components of sustainble development are: environment, economic and social sustainability.

Well that's everything, toodles!

Visual communication with Suzie

Hey all, at the start of the lesson we carried on finishing the posters that we started last week on 'Sense of Place'. Once we finished, one person out of each group had to hold our poster up and describe what is on there and why.
Suzie then told with us about how metaphors are useful and important in images, songs, films etc. Suzie then asked us to think of as many songs with lyrics that are metaphors, ours were:

• Lady Gaga - Marry the Night
• Adele - Rolling in the Deep
• Rihanna - Only Girl in the World
• Shakira - Hips don't lie
• Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
• Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire

We then looked at a pile of images that were advertising campaigns. We had to say what the metaphor was, and order the images (Most shocking proocking to least etc.)

Finally, we watched a clip of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech that inolved a great deal of metaphors. Some of the metaphors i noticed were:

• Thirst for freedom
• Drink from the cup of bitterness and hatred
• Ocean of prosperity
• Bank of justice is bankrupt
• Palace of justice
• Wallow in the valley of despair
• Justice flows like water

That's all for Vis Com this week, Toodles!!!

What is ed lecture

Hey all! This weeks lecture was with Olive Hopker, who is the Head of Planning and Development in Swansea Metropolitan University.
Olive talked to us about Collaboration-V-Competition in education. She talked about:

• 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)

She also gave us examples of government statements from mostly Leighton Andrews, for:

• Schools / Further Education Sector
• Higher Education

What is ed seminar with Steve Gullick 13/2/12

This was our second and last seminar for what is education this term, and it was with Steve Gullick again. In this session he told us some more intereting facts about governors, this time focusing more on the whole of Wales. Some of the facts were:

• A large number of the governing body in Wales do not have the full number, and are short of community governors with a business background.
• Poor/deprived areas lack governors e.g: Valleys and rural areas (lots of little schools, low population)
• Stuart Ranson researched 'School Governors and Improvement in Wales' and found that the vast majority are white, middle class, middle aged. Not enough ethnic governors. This might be due to many factors: Racism? Lack of confidence? Perceptions? Language barrier?
• Not all governors are well trained, all 22 LEA's must provide free training. 14 of them said that a few governors were trained, a lot of courses are cancelled due to lack of interest, and 5 for lack of support.

Steve also told us that Peter Earley (London Institute of Education) researched the types of governors, and the amount of each one in Wales. He found that there were 4 types of governors: (Majority to least)

1. The Supporters' club
2. The Partners
3. The Abdicators
4. The Adversaries

Steve also gave us a copy of the Welsh Assembley Government's leaflet (That Steve produced) on Becoming a school governor.

What is ed seminar with Steve Gullick 6/2/12

This was our first seminar session with Steve Gullick, he talked about the health and safety aspect of being a governor. He gave us a few hyperthetical examples, on of them being:
' As a governor, you are obviously very concerned that health and safety matters are dealt with well at your school. This is usually th case, but the headteacher tells you that she is no structure to the way teachers prepare for overnight trips and visits for pupils. To deal with this situation the governing body sets up a working party of 3 governors and 2 teachers to produce a checklist for teachers to go through before they take an overnight trip. You are a member of the working party, what do you include on the checklist? '

Some of the things we included:

• Meeting with parents before trip
• First aid kits and a first aider
• Contact details and medical details, medication etc
• Food & drink, spare clothes, money etc
• List of pupils and staff, itinerary, risk assesment etc

He also told us the diference between strategic and tactical planning. Strategic being the governors (more long term) and tactical being the school (more short term).

Visual communication with Suzie

Hey all!
In this weeks lesson with Suzie, she dedicated the lesson to our project. As we have mentioned to her in the past few lessons that we are confused on what is expected of us, she told us the basic idea of "Sense of place". We then had to discuss in goups what we thought sense of place meant. We came up with the ideas:

• You know what you're doing in life
• Awareness / Belonging
• Content
• Goal / Friends / Relationships
• Knowledge and appreciation of surroundings
• Memories
• Physical location (A country, holiday destination etc.)

We then looked through magazines and cut different pictures and slogans, that we thought was relevant to sense of place, and stuck them onto a large piece of card. We will be finishing this next week.

 

That's all for now, toodles!

Exorcism of the last painting i ever made - Tracey Emin

I've got it all - Tracey Emin

Everyone i've ever slept with - Tracey Emin

To meet my past - Tracey Emin

My bed - Tracey Emin

Visual communication with Suzie

On Monday Suzie dedicated the majority of the lesson to show and discuss with us photos of the artist Tracey Emins art work. She showed us five photos:

• My Bed
• To meet my past
• Everyone i've ever sleptt with
• I've got it all
• Exorcism of the last painting i ever made

We then talked through each photo and we talked through what was happenning in each one, and what we thought she was trying to portray in the art work. We then gave our opinion on whether we liked it or not, why, and if we agreed with the artists interpretation.

Toodles! Photos of the art to follow :)

What is ed lecture

Hey everyone! Last monday we had a lecture for what is ed with Steve Gullick again. He carried on the topic of the governing body.
This time, he told us all about the contact between the school governors and teaching staff. And they are:

• Job interviews
• Informal visits to schools
• Celebrations e..: school concerts and productions
• Presntations at governing body meetings
• Link governors and their visits, e.g.: for SEN and for eah subject
• Staff disciplinary committee meetings

He also told us that a head teacher can physically stop a parent, police etc coming into the school but they cant stop inspeectors and governors; which i found very intersting. He also told us in detail the process of the staff disciplinary hearings. And the process of the headteacher sending out letters, the clerks role and also the four possible verdicts. Which were:

• No charge whatsoever
• 1st written warning
• Last warning
• Dismissal -> Appeal?

He also went back to a topic of last weeks lecture, which was: Should we have experts as governors? And would this cause tension?

All in all  very intersting lecture, toodles!

Last weeks guest lecture for What is Ed?

Hey guys, ive only now found my notes for last weeks what is ed lecture, so here's my belated blog.

So, the lecturer was Steve Gullick, who is the director for All Wales Centre for Training and Reserch. His topic for the lecture was the roles of the governing body. He discussed what they were, who who they, what roles they had in the school and how important they are. He also started a debate on should governors get paid, as they have such an important role in education, should they get a wage for the important duties they carry out for the school and the children.

He also talked about who makes up the governing body, and how it differs from primary to secondary school. So there'd be more parent governors in secondary compared to primay etc. Another thing i found interesting, was that if you are a parentt governor of a year 11 pupil, you still have to be a governor or the full 4 years, even if your child has left the school. He finally talked about the agenda of the meeting and the role of the chair, secretary and the clerk etc.

All in all, it was a very interesting lecture. Toodles!

Scream

Ich Habe Angst

The big Shave by Martin Scorcese

Visual Communication with Suzie

Hey everyone!

So, we had our first lesson with Suzie last week. I have to say, it wasnt what i expected it to be, i thought it would all be help and advice on the project. But we talked about the importance of images, and logos, e.g: M for McDonald's, what that image portrays, who is the audience and who is the artist, and what we think or feel when we see that particular image.

Suzie also showed us two images on the board, which were 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch and 'Ichh Habe Angst' by Rosemarie Trockel. As a group, we discussed what was happening in the images, the feelings it portrays, what we think of it etc.

We then watched a short film by Martin Scorcese called 'The Big Shave'. I have to admit, when Suzie told us to brace ourselves, i did start to worry. But i found the video quite boring, even though it did have a lot of blood and gore, it didnt spark my interest at all. Once Suzie explained it to us, i understood the meaning behind it, but it didnt phase me like it did others in the class.

Anyways, toodles!

Mandy's last lesson :(

Hey!

So, in mandy's last lesson, we used internet sites such as text-image.com and a graffiti site to create images using words e.g: our name. i really enjoyed this lesson as it was fun playing around with the different proogrammes, as i hadnt heard of them before. We tried a few other sites, but they didnt work. I think i enjoyed the text image one, as you could turn any image into words, so i used picture of hearts to create the text/image.

It was a really enjoyable last lesson :)

Toodles!

text-image.com

Graffiti name

Todays guest lecture for What is Ed?

Today we had another guest lecturer for What is Education lecture instead of Andy, the guest lecturers name was Russell Grigg.

He talked about the role that Estyn has in education in Wales. What Estyn does, where it does it and why. For example: the role with the government, schools, governors, teachers, parents and of course the pupils.

Again, this was an interesting lecture as i didnt know that much aboutn estyn. But the lecture did drag a bit.

Flip camera movies of the uni

In last weeks lesson we were put into groups, then we were given a title, ours was 'The place'. So we decided to film around the university using our route to each class and lecture. Once we finished filming, we uploaded the video to windows movie maker, sped up the video times 3 and then added a song from Benny Hill theme tune to the background.

We then saved the video to the computer, and then once every group has done this, all the videos will be added together to make a short movie.

I really enjoyed this task, it was fun going around the uni in our group filming with the flip camera. It was also fun editing the video and adding the music.

Toodles!

last weeks guest lecturer for what is ed?

Last week we had a guest lecturer called Ken Jones for our What is Ed? instead of Andy.

He talked about local authorities role in education, and the issue of size and capacity of local authorities.

He talked about the 2006 and 2010 PISA and their responses, and the improvements that needed to be made.

The lecture was very intreresting as we didnt know about some of the topics.

Back for the new year :)

Hey guys!

I hope everyone has had a fab christmas and new year :)

well everything's changing already: lecturers being ill, change of timetables, assignments!

well not really anything to blog about really, just thinking that i'd better make a start on all these assignments, think i'll leave it till research week though, have a rest till then! haha :p

well i'll speak to you soon, toodles!