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!