Guest speaker - 20/03/12

Our guest speaker for this lecture was Jane Davidson who was the education Minister of Wales for 7 years.  She started off by telling us about the background of education, stating that the National Curriculum was introduced in 1983. She then went onto state that by 1997 there was a change of Government because Labour came in to power, and that from 1993 up until 1997 there was a structured education system where children were being trained rather than educated. In 1999 the National Assembly was introduced. Later on in 2000 Rhodri Morgan became the first minister for Education. She then went on to discuss the book 'the learning country' which was published in 2001, and how people would be passionate about learning from this structured education system. 

Guest speaker - 13/03/12

Today's guest speaker was Alice Davies. She came into speak to us about what is widening Access in Wales, the aims of the programme as well as how it works. It works by increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to benefit from higher education.  Social classes A (upper) B (middle) dominate HE. WA (widening access) aims to increase the number of people from 'under-reprosented' groups in Higher Education. These being:

• people from specific black and ethnic minority communities
• disabled
• low income families
• looked after children + care takers.

Here are some other things i noted from this session.

• Income
• Employment
• Health
• Education
• Housing
• Access to services.

HEFCW Widening Access Funding.

• Fee planning - justify why they charge so much for fees,
• Wa premium - University gets a bit of money for certain students,
• Wa strategy funding - goes to institution,
• Reaching wider - established in 2002 by HEFCW to look after young people, disabled, ethnic and welsh speakers.

A phew other aims are: 

• Raise Aspiration - making people wanting to go to school,
• Raise Attainment - people are not getting the grades they need.

Progressive Programme,

Primary 

• Arts in action 
• STEM workshops

Year 7

• Literacy support

Year 9

• ACE days
• Mentoring - students who do not always have the support at home,
• Saturday clubs
• Technocamps.

Year 10

• Spring school - Introducing them to the environment
• STAR days - study to achieve results
• Task of University or College life days
• Saturday clubs

Year 11

• GCSE revision - help get their GCSE
• College taster days - young people from schools to the colleges
• Study skills sessions
• Mentoring

Year 12

• Subject specific summer schools - law, modern foreign language through the medium of welsh

Year 12 summer university 

• 4 weeks residential - pic a subject
• Range of subject options
• Skills for HE
• 60 ucas point/grade reduction

Year 13

• Ucas support for summer university cohort.

Enhancing the undergraduate experience.

• Work experience
• Paid work and volunteering
• Student residencies in schools
• Signposting function

LAC and care leavers

• Homework club - Neath Port talbot college
• Well being course - Pembrokshire college
• Performing Arts/Communication workshops
• Talks to foster carers and social workers
• Publication

BME Communities

• Gypsy and traveller groups
• Local community groups

Measurable Outcomes

• GCSE results
• Attendance
• Retention in FE
• Progression to HE
• Impact measurement

Guest speaker - 06/03/12

Todays lecturer was Nick Bennett, he is the Principal of Gower College in Swansea.
His topic for us today was on FE (further education) Policy.
His aim for this session was to give us answers on key questions which were relevant to his topic. These were:

• What is FE for?
• Who runs FE?
• What is FE and what is its purpose?

This is the list of information that I had noted down that could help answer these questions.

What is FE for?

Underpin Social Justice 

• Widening access
• Second chance
• Civic duty
• Cultural awareness

Support the economy

• Work based learning - Learning equal
• Business generation- Welsh medium
• Entrepreneurship - Local
• Knowledge explotation - Go out and help industry.

Learning activity - FE works - based learning providers

• Level 1 -  Qualifications from D-G
• Level 2 - Qualifications from A-C
• Level 3 - Qualifications from A level and national diploma's
• Level 4-5  - Qualifications in professional subjects - Law, accountancy, medicine etc. 

Up to 50% of results are not up to satisfactory level within numeracy and literacy. 

Welsh Government's Programme: September 2011

Leighton Andrews ( current Minister for Education in Wales) 

He wants to: 

• change everything on education.
• reform the governance of further education in Wales.
• work with further education providers

Having disccused all of this information the conclusion to this is that the FE policy has resulted in having a huge number of reviews but they lack coherence. 

Adverts

Our visual and communication session today was on advertising. We started off by watching approximately seven adverts that Suzie had chosen and we then went on to discuss them. Suzie felt that all adverts have a relevance,  so this is what we based our discussion on, as well as how adverts affect peoples feelings twoards a particular object within a certain subject.

                                            Skoda fabia advert

                                          

Volkswagon werbung think blue 

Having discussed these adverts we then went into pairs and did research of our own on an advert of our choice. With these adverts we had to discuss many different topics like camera angles and their purpose, the main story, the targeted audience, our opinion on it etc. The advert  we chose was the Cadbury eyebrows. We thought that it was a good advert to show to our class because it captures the audience's attention straight away as you do not know what is going to happen or going on. As well as being captivating it is also funny and unusual because it is not something you would expect to see, therfore we felt that it was a successful because once you watch it you feel the urge to go and buy the chocolate as it was cheery and exiting. 

Cadbury Eyebrows

Guest speaker - 28/02/12

Today's guest speaker was Mike Day. He began by saying what his aim for this lecture was. These aims were to answer the following questions:

• What is education Policy?
• Who should develop it?
• Where is it developed?
• How is it developed?
• Why is education Policy needed?

Here are some of the answers. 


What is education policy?


It is a definition of terms which are:

• Goals
• Mission - an overall goal
• Objectives - specific aims to be achieved
• Policy
• Strategy

Why is education policy needed?

• 'Guide operational decisions and actions'
• Teacher in classroom - wha to do today?
• Guidelines or straigh jacket

Who should develop it?

When it comes to 'who should develop'  it Mike went onto say if it should be Politicians or Practitioners.
The politicians are elected to represent the people, but they are not subject experts.

The problems with practitioners are:

• they are unable to take the wider view, they only see things happening within their classroom context. They do not see what goes on outside of the classroom so therefore do not have a variety of a view. 
• they see things from their perspectives.

On the other hand practitioners know things  work in practice. 

Where is education policy developed?

• Uk level
• Welsh Government
• Local Authority
• School and Governing body level - (they are not controlled by local authority)

Having had the answers to these questions he then went onto explain the key details of Swamwac (South West and mid Wales). These key principles are:

• Stake holder engagement - continuing openess and partnerships working
• Coherence
• Flexibility - process which can respond to changing circumstances
• Objectivity
• Cost effectiveness
• Resourced - Underpinned by  Investment strategy.