Personal objects with Suzie

We had an insteresting session with Suzie where we had to bring in 5 personal objects with meaning to us. I didn't know what to expect from this session but I brought my objects along. Firstly in this session we looked at an artist called Tracy Emin. We looked at her contemporary pieces of art and looked at the meaning behind them. I liked her art and thought the pieces were showing very personal parts of her and liked that she us shown these things to the world. After analysing her art we then had to go into groups and arrange our objects with meaning. We then told Suzie about the objects and talked to the class about one. I enjoyed this session and I can see how it links in with the assignment as it all focuses on a 'sense of place'. I am now looking forward to starting my project.

What is education? Guest lecture 3

This what is eduction guest lecture was taken by Steve Gullick. He spoke to us about governors and governing bodies and their roles. he told us that governors are unpaid volunteers which is something I didn't know. We then discussed the 2 main views on what governors should be, which are; that they should be quailified proffesionals in their area of governing in order to be a governor, or that they should just be people who have interest or a 'stake' in the school and want it to do well. Governors are currently people who have a stake in the school and do not have to be quailified in any way to be a governor. We were then given handouts with the agenda of a typical governing body meeting,roles of the governing body which are the legally required ones and the makeup of a governing body listed. We were also told that governors have to have meetings at least once a term. 
I appreciated this lecture as I found it very informing about things I didn't know about governors. I think it is important that people in our area of learning know about governors as they are an important part of school education. I thought that Steve was a good speaker but I found it more difficult to concentrate on what he was saying because he was reading from notes not a powerpoint. But overall and important and useful lecture.

What is education? Guest lecture 2

Our second guest lecturer for our what is education module was Russell Grigg.Russell spoke to us about Estyn. Estyn is the organisation which inspects quaility and standards in education in Wales. Estyn inspects:

• Nursery, primary, secondary, independent and special schools
• Pupil refferal units
• Further education
• Adult community learning
• Local authority education services for children and young people
• Teacher education and training
• Work based learning
• Careers and companies
• Offender learning

Estyn also:

• Provide advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on quality and standards 

• Promote the spread of good practice in education and training

Estyn then provides reports on instatutions and themtaic reports.
The judgements Estyn make in their reports are:

• Excellent
• Good
• Adequate
• Unsatisfactory

Although I found this lecutre hard to take in, in places, I knew how important the subject was. I liked that we are having the oppourtunity to learn about important topics in education such as inspections. I also liked that Russell did encourage us to interact through asking us questions about our own views and opinions on the topic.

What is education? Guest lecture 1

We are now having guest lectures for the what is education module which I am going to blog about in order to reflect on the lectures and what I think about the guest speakers. Our first guest speaker was Ken Jones. He spoke to us about the Welsh Assembly Government and what they are currently doing with eduaction and the role of the local authority in education. He told us that the current education minister in wales is Leighton Andrews, which I did not know. He also went on to talk about the difference in local authorities now and in the past. He told us some interesting facts about this including that there used to be 8 local authorities in Wales and following the reorganisation in 1999 there are now 22 unitary authorities, these smaller but increased number of authorities are now causing issues for some schools as there has been an increased number of school closures due to the number of LA'S.

We were also spoken to about PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) testing. PISA tests are for testing pupils in English, Maths and Science. Ken showed some alarming figures of where Wales is in the rankings, we shared thoughts about this and how this was going to change. 

  

I found this lecture very interesting as it provided us with information that as Education Studies students we need to know. I feel that I know alot more about what is currently happening in the education system in Wales. I also liked Ken as a speaker. I felt that he got everything across clearly and made the session quite interactive through discussion. I also liked his use of the powerpoint he had prepared and the extra sources for information he gave us. Overall a good first guest speaker.