What is Ed?

27/3/12

Guest speaker - Professor David Warner Vice-Chancellor of Swansea Metropolitan University

I was really looking forward to this lecture as I had met the Vice-Chancellor the Tuesday before this in our Varsity Presentation in the Dragon Hotel the night before Varsity, and he was very amusing to listen to and giving a speech. He had some very funny one-liners. So anyway, I went in to this lecture with a very positive attitude!

The lecture was mainly about Higher Education and what it involved. Some of the things Prof. David spoke about where:

× What is education for?
× What do Universities in Higher Education institutes have to offer us?

After much discussion about these two questions he then went on to talk about the biggest benefits of Higher Education. They are as follows:

× Transferable skills
× Allows the learner to find information for themselves – not to be spoon fed by teachers or lectures
× Learners learn to support themselves
× Ability the manage social and professional life successfully
× Learn how to argue appropriately
× Work as a member of a team effectively
× Learn how to draw accurate conclusions and evaluations
× Increase the amount of work done independently

He finished off the lecture with a brief discussion about the future of education and then two questions:

1) Why go to university, and

2) Student fees.

I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture, and I was very glad to see that Prof. David was the same funny, easy to listen to man that made a speech in our presentation.

What is Ed?

20/3/12

Guest speaker - Jane Davidson used to be Minister for Education, currently involved with Trinity College.

To begin, Jane briefly discussed the history of education in the government and then told us about why she, along side other people, wrote 'The Learning Country' in 2001. This document was produced as a strategy that would run over 10 years in order to be fully developed and sustainable. Jane explained how it had been very successful but this didn't mean that they haven't made changes and amendments to it now, to enable it to continue to work effectively, although 90% of it is still to be seen underpinning education today. She said its main focus was on helping learners to be prepared for the next stages in education and to help them realise what they wanted to do with life.

She also explained to us how people saw education differently to what they did now, especially in the 1990's. She said it was viewed as being too structured back then and that parents that their children were being taught to pass tests, not to be educated and to be prepared for later life.

I really enjoyed this lecture, especially because a lot of it was from her previous employment as the Minister of Education, so what she was saying was the real deal haha!

What is Ed?

6/3/12

Guest speaker - Nick Bennett Principal of Gower College

The topic for this lectures was 'Education Policy and Further Education'.

What is Further Education for?

× Become ready for work
× Become ready for Higher Education
× Social Justice:
- Widening access
- Second chance
- Community regeneration
- Fulfilment of potential
- Cultural awareness
- Civic duty
- Financial support

× Support for economy:
- Employer engagement
- Work-based learning
- Vocational qualifications
- Knowledge exploration
- Business generation
- Worldwide development
- International partnership
- Entrepreneurship

Together they bring:

× Teaching and learning
× Equal opportunities
× Innovation
× Welsh medium
× Progression
× Flexibility
× Tailored
× Local- courses that meet local needs

What is Ed?

21/2/12

Guest speaker - Graham Allen Environmental Manager in Swansea Metropolitan University

The topic for this lecture was 'Education for sustainable development'.

He began the lecture by talking about Agenda 21, which is an action plan of the United Nations related to Sustainable Development. It was an outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992. It is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans directly affect the environment.

He then discussed corporate responsibilities, which is an organisations positive impact on the society and environment. Some elements of this are:

× Corporate strategy
× Integrator
× Management
× Community
× Performance and impact
× Community
× Environment
× Market place
× Workplace - Health and safety, equality and diversity, high quality staff and staff performance and development.

Digression; Benefits of growth

× Creates employment
× Higher income
× Decrease in poverty
× Improved standards of living

And finally, he discussed the 5 themes for ESDGC (Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship).

× Links between society, economy and environment
× Needs and rights of both present and future generations
× Relationship between power, resources and human rights
× Local and global implications of everything we do
× Actions individuals can take in response to the implications

What is Ed?

14/2/12

Guest speaker - Olive Hopker Head of Planning and Development at Swansea Metropolitan University

Olive Hopker came in an spoke to us about Collaboration V Competition. Some the things she spoke about include:

× Ministerial Statements
× Employment and Governance Structure in Wales
× Collaboration and Competition issues
× Regional Planning and role of the HEFCW (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales)

She gave us some examples of current collaborations such as:

× External examiners
× Research projects
× Library access
× ICT
× Academic development

After this, Olive then went on to discuss some of the benefits from these current collaborations, some of these contained:

× Shared expertise and knowledge
× Cost saving
× Enhance reputation
× Value of ‘external eye’
× Greater effectiveness

Following this was the explanation of HEFCW being the body responsible for the allocation of public funding for Higher Education across Wales. I found this very interesting because this is something that I didn’t know, and also something that I’d never really thought about until Olive said it.

All in all I found this lecture really interesting because it made me begin to question thing about HE that I never would have known before.

What is Ed?

23/1/12 & 6/2/12

Guest speaker - Steve Gullick Director of all Wales Centre for Training and Research.

Steve came in to speak in two lectures and two seminar session. In these lectures he spoke mainly about the governing bodies of schools and what the individual roles are within a school's governing body.
I found these lectures really interesting because although both my parents have previously been members of governing bodies and my mother is currently, I never really knew what they did and why. Steve discussed with us how all governing bodies are pretty much the same, although they do differ from primary to secondary schools. He also went in to details about a few of the job roles within a governing body, secretary for example, and he also showed us an example of an agenda and how that worked.

In the second lecture he continued with the governing body topic and began to discuss the relation a governing body had to it's school. Told us how members of the body sit in on job interviews for the school and are also present in staff disciplinary committee meetings.

I really enjoyed these lectures and feel that they were very interesting and useful.