Nick Bennett (guest speaker) FE Policy ASSIGNMENT

   On the 6^th March, Nick Bennett the Principal of Gower College came in to speak to us as a guest lecture. His main objective was to show us an overview of further education in Wales. The Welsh Government is in charge of education in Wales and it is funded by a department of skills. Further education is non-compulsory, it is any level after compulsory education such as college and university. The Welsh Government has two major functions:

1.    Underpinning Social Justice

This includes:

·         Widening access

·         Second chances

·         Cultural awareness

·         Financial support

2.    Supporting the Economy

This includes:

·         Employer Engagement

·         Work based learning

·         Qualifications

·         Entrepreneurship

·         Business generation

By having these major functions it will eventually lead to teaching and learning. People will now be given equal opportunities by support where age, race and disability does not matter. The Government however are trying to bring in the Welsh Medium into role so more learners are able to speak and understand the Welsh language. The Government are also looking for high demands of progression to prepare learners properly for Higher Education.

    Mr Bennett then gave us some interesting statistics on the FE (Further Education) Policy. He told us that:

·         95% of students studying in Wales are actually Welsh

·         In 2009/10 there were 184,730 learners in Wales

·         The FE offers over 5,000 different qualifications in Wales

·         68% of the students are over 19

    Today the Welsh Government is trying to improve FE. To do this they are providing more financial support than ever before such as EMA. EMA is money for 16 to 18 year olds who want to continue their education after school leaving age. If you’re eligible, you could get £30 a week, paid every two weeks. University fee’s however are due to go up in 2012/13. The maximum tuition fee you can be charged in the academic year is £9,000. The actual amount you are charged can vary depending on your choice of university or college or course. Your university or college can confirm the exact amount you will be charged for your course. (www.studentfinancewales.co.uk)
    Mr Bennett also told us that in 1979 there were 40 colleges and today in 2012 there are only 17 colleges, this is because they have merged together creating bigger and better places for HE.

Suzie Pugh - pictures around the University

In todays session, Suzie got us to experiment with different emotions using a digital camera. We were each given an I-pod with a camera and then set off around the University. I did not have a specific emotion, I tried to find funny, unusual things about the place. Here is what I found:

Steve Gullick - What is Education 7/2/12 SEMINAR

    Today Steve gave us real life examples of Govening experiences that he's dealt with. He did not give any names so everything was confidential. The first handout was about Health and Safety. He gave us a situation on a school trip and we had to give a checklist on what we would do before going on a trip. We went around the class giving answers such as consent forms, first aid kit etc. Steve gave us 2 examples and then went on to explain whatr Strategic Planning is. We are now aware that SMT, staff and governers meet to produce a Develpment Plan.

Steve Gullick - What is Education 6/2/12 LECTURE

     Today we had a guest speaker in the lecture covering Andy. He was an ex Head Teacher, Steve was Head at a large school in Birmingham. In this lecture he talked to us about Governers, explaining what they were and what their roles are. Steve explained that there are 23,000 Governers in Wales, he then gave us a handout showing the main key roles. This includes promoting high standards, setting targets and managing the school budget. Steve then went onto who is included in the Govening body. It is built up of parents, LEA's, Teachers, Staff, Community and the Head.
    Steve then gave us another hand out explaining how school governers interact with the teachers. I now know they do this by job interviews, informal visits to schools, celebrations and meetings.

Different Text's

Here I visited http://www.graffiticreator.net/ and created my own graffiti, it says Ffion.

Another creative text website I used was http://www.tagxedo.com/, here it asked me for a URL that I use so I wrote down my facebook address. Then this came up:

I changed the colour of the tagxedo to different shades of blue's as these are the facebook colours. I also changed the font type to get a similir one to the facebook logo.

Another website we used was http://www.text-image.com/, here I created:

Movie Making

Last week on the 10th of Jan, Mandy us into groups of four. My group included Lucy, Carl and Tom. Mandy gave everygroup a topic, ours was "people". The main object of the movie was to have no sound! Here we had to go around the University and record them. We wrote down on a peice of paper their name and their role in the Uni, they then held this up. After we wrote on a peice of paper "we come to her if we..." etc. We had a total of 22 clips. After an hour of going around the Uni we came back to the classroom and put them in order, next we put a song as the background music and speeded up the clip. We are showing them to our class next week :)!

My Placement

Its the 10th of Januray and my 2nd day back at Uni. At last week of Uni before the Christmas holidays we had "placement". Here I visited my old Primary School, Catwg. I visited for a school week and got put into Year1. I visited a Primary School whilst at College each Wednesday afternoon and assisted in Nursery and Year3, so Year1 was very different experience. As it was close to Christmas, the whole school were preparing for the Christmas concert. I got involved helping the children to remember their lines, learn new dance routines and songs. I throughly enjoyed watching back it was so funny!
The school is alot more modernized from when I was there. In there classroom there are 2 computers, from here the register is reported. At afternoons the children had activitys such as crafts, acting in the playcorner and toys. Another activity was on the computer, here the children had to work in partners to complete puzzles on screen.
Also in the classroom there is now a interactive whiteboard, the Teacher used this everyday whilst the children sat on the carpet watching.