Alexandra Jane Burden
Level 6
Design: Creative Media (Film and Photography)
Ffresh 2013
Ffresh is a Student
Moving Image Festival that is based in, and travels around, Wales each year.
This year the festival was held at Glyndŵr University and I was lucky to get a
free pass for the whole 3 day event. Over these 3 days, there were a number of
lectures and masterclasses from various professionals in the moving image
business. There were also a couple of live music sessions and the films
shortlisted for each category were also shown.
Overall, I felt that the whole 3 days of Ffresh was not particularly interesting for me, though it was an honour to be able to get a free 3 day pass for it. The talks that were on did not really pique my attention and I found most of them to be quite boring, but that is my own opinion, other people would have had more interest and found them rather enjoyable.
I was able to go to 2 live music sessions which were quite entertaining. The bands songs were different to the music I normally listen to, which is quite varied anyway, but were nice enough to listen to and nod along with. The only thing I found annoying was the fact that we had to applause at certain times as the sessions were being filmed and this applause would lead into and out of the songs.
Showreels from the main Universities in Wales was shown at Ffresh and I was able to go to most of them. Looking at what other Universities do and how well the students have made the films that were shown, gives me doubts on the course I decided to do at this University as I don't feel I could produce anything near as high-standard as what was shown. I was even slightly embarrassed that the showreel for Glyndŵr that was shown, had videos and animations that were from students who graduated quite a few years ago and there wasn't a lot that was from recent students.
There were showreels for the shortlisted films played over the 3 days, but I was only able to go to a couple of these. I went to both International Fiction showreels where the films were of a very gripping and of a high-standard. The only problem I have with International Films, not just these, is that there are English subtitles along the bottom of the screen, so you are reading these to understand what the characters are saying and thus are missing what is happening on the screen.
While the Ffresh Festival was an honour to get to go to, and I fully appreciate how much work and effort was put in to run the Festival, I don't feel that it had much relevance in my interest to become a teacher.
Creative Futures 2013
For my last time, the
Creative Futures Student Conference was held between 4th and 7th
March at Glyndŵr University. This Conference brings a number of professionals
from different, mostly creative, backgrounds to help provide us students with
an insight into the realities of working in the creative industries, various
opportunities to develop professionally and to give us an opportunity to meet
and network with industry professionals to help us develop our future careers.
Monday 4th
March
Opening Address – ‘What’s
Current in the Creative Industries?’ from Sarah Mair Gates.
Sarah Mair Gates is the Wales Manager for Creative and Cultural Skills, which is the Sector Skills Council for Craft, Design, Cultural Heritage, Literature, Music, Performance and Visual Arts. Her focus is to build the National Skills Academy for Creative and Cultural in Wales, linking education and industry to look at skills development, apprenticeships and the Creative Choices careers programme.
Within the Sector Skills Council, they are continually researching and updating their statistics on the workforce and developing National Occupational Standards that set a benchmark for people to achieve in their work. They have apprenticeships up to a high level within business, careers information and events in collages, and Industry relevant training.
There are 1,745
businesses in Wales of which, 27,990 people have jobs in the Creative Industries.
28.6% employees are part-time and 45% are freelance, with 42% being women. 92%
businesses have less than 10 members of staff. The largest of these sectors are
Design, Performing Arts and Music, with the latter 2 growing in the recession
and Live Music Events increasing, in particular. There are 59 apprenticeships
in Wales and they are looking at how flexible employers can be in giving
apprentices experience in several jobs. They also do Creative Choices events
for children, so that they can speak to the people who actually do the job.
This website is designed to show you that there are a lot of different jobs within the Creative Industries, not just acting and Directing.
This talk was very insightful and it is good to know that there is an organisation that helps people who work in the Creative Industries by helping to find them the appropriate training for their job, as well as helping others who wish to get into the Creative Industries get apprenticeships, not only from a young age in schools, but also into the higher levels in business. I didn’t enjoy the constant bombardment of statistics, but that is unavoidable when the organisation works with, and is continually updating their, statistics. I am pleased that the organisation gives children a chance to go into different business and lets them meet the employees, who actually do the job, to ask questions as this is not usually given until children are about 14/15 years old; unless they have family/friends within the business they are interested in.
Dr. Stuart Cunningham
standing in for Gwawr Hughes from Creative Skillset Cymru.
Creative Skillset Cymru is the employer-led Sector Skills Council for the Creative Industries in Wales. Its remit is to improve the level of skills and business performance in companies across the Creative Industries including Film, Radio, Interactive Media, Animation, Computer Games, Facilities, Photo Imaging, Publishing, Advertising and Fashion and Textiles. It works with other employers to identify their business needs and then shapes policies, funding and learning provision for their benefit.
Dr. Stuart Cunningham is the Academic Leader for Creative Industries, Media and Performance at Glyndŵr University.
Creative Skillset Cymru deals more with the digital and technology side of the Creative Industries. They match up the main stakeholders in the digital creative side; the industry partners, education partners and the employees, and deal with the training needs of employees, such as their education. They devise the National Occupational Standard’s minimum set of benchmarks to meet the needs of the industry.
There are 31,500 people working in the Creative Industries in Wales, the majority of these will be working in small companies or freelance rather than in big companies. 83% of companies employ less than 10 people and 28% of people work freelance. The Graduate and Creative Industries salary is lower than the rest of the businesses in the UK. It is a competitive market; with 68% of the workforce having degrees, and 30% of these having Post-Graduate degrees. The demand for new skills is extremely high; 13% of employers had current vacancies and over half of these report having skills gaps, including entrepreneurship thinking, basic business management skills and communication skills. The core skills within the Creative Industries need to be very high and it is in the more general skills where there are skills gaps. Employees now need to be multi-skilled and transfer their skills into other domains for example, the BBC has had a lot of changes recently; moving from London to Salford and staffing changes, and had you gone to work for them 10 years ago, you would have gone into a production facility where one person does one job, now one or two people are doing a number of roles.
There is value in adding breadth, as well as depth, to your skills. We need to make sure that the people who work freelance don’t get left behind with all these current developments. Creative Skillset Cymru has a list of different initiatives; the Welsh Baccalaureate in High Schools, Apprenticeships, Partnerships with Collages and Higher Education sectors and focusing on training for people in business (with up to 80% of course fees covered by Skillset).
Ted Talks – David Kelley: How to build your Creative Confidence
This talk was a little boring straight after the talk from Sarah Mair Gates, as it is basically repeating what was said earlier. There are a few contradictions in the statistics, but the overall talk was pretty much the same, talking about how many people are in working in the Creative Industries and how the company helps these people as well as those wishing to work in this sector. The two companies are basically the same, with Skillset focusing more on the digital side of things, while Creative and Cultural Skills cover a lot of the backstage and practical work.
Key Note Speech –
‘Painting over the Cracks’ from Professor Paul Haywood
Professor Haywood currently works at the University of Salford as the advisor to the Vice Chancellor and for the Salford Trust as project lead for Learning Co-operatives. He is also Joint Chair of the National Association for Fine Art Education. Following over 25 years of collaborations and partnerships with artists working on social intervention projects, regeneration initiatives and urban renewal programmes, Prof. Haywood’s current obsessions are focused on the arts as a stimulus for collective enterprise and creative engagements. As a practitioner and academic researcher, his work is designed to cut across discipline fields and engage with a broad spectrum of interests and motivations as a means of generating collective action. He has worked on a range of outputs from architectural commissions for integrated public art schemes to research with methods of environmental aesthetics and landscape painting creating routes through to new social interactions or enterprise with long-term objectives. He continues to make and produce more speculative works using painting, photography and installation, mostly related to community and landscape identity.
A part of his practice as an artist has had to take on the look and feel of research. It’s a pragmatic shift; “I work for a University, they pay me a wage, I have very little time for anything else. Academia has become one of the fields; my habitus, my heimat. Much of what I may choose to call my art practice is otherwise recognised as research and what might be expected from me as research I prefer to call art.” The practice functions in the realm of social sculpture (and reverse innovation modelling in social spheres) leading to enterprise activism and positive campaigning with the intention to impact on design thinking, organisational planning or local policy adjustment for the sake of a recognisable constituency. Prof. Haywood regularly collaborates with other creative professionals and most often with Maxine Kennedy and Sam Ingleson. He also partners, co-creates and co-produces with; community activists, social entrepreneurs, public policy researchers, sociologists and others, by playing out a role as an artist. His experiences indicate that one future trajectory for the arts and creative media practices, is wholly dedicated to the social networks and geographies of our towns and cities: a cultural intermediation that more closely aligns to exchange economies as an antidote or solution to global capitalism and commercialisation.
Prof. Haywood has recently been involved in a number of community projects:
·
www.gunstogoods.org:
collaboration with the
Greater Manchester Police to heighten the awareness of gun crime, and to get
firearms off the street. The firearms are melted down into ingots and sold as a
keepsake and also as a reminder to keep guns off the streets. The profits from
this venture are fed back into the local community to fund mentoring programs.
·
www.colouredge.org: in celebration of the
10th Anniversary of the Littleborough Arts Festival, Paul Heywood and Maxine
Kennedy looked to the landscape to create a community project. They created a colour
palette as a representation of Littleborough’s landscape, with the aim of
creating a palette of colours that represents the buildings, the ambient light
and the local nature.
·
www.colourground.org: a continuation of
the Colour Edge project where palettes are created from other city landscapes,
and are literally made from the surrounding environment. Brick and stone, as
well as other naturally occurring minerals, are ground into a powder dust that
creates a pigment which is mixed with linseed oil. The end result is a
true colour match for any landscape, in the form of oil paint that an artist can
add to their palette.
·
www.secretgardensfestival.net:
a 2 week festival in 2012, the secret gardens festival is a way of finding
creative talent across Salford and Trafford. New creatives express their talent
in a variety of art forms including poetry, dance, film, sculpture and
traditional media. The wider community was involved and was part-funded by
local and national funding bodies for the arts.
This talk wasn’t really
for me and while the projects that he has recently been involved with bring the
community together, as well as safety, I just wasn’t really interested in the
whole of the talk.
‘A Career in Post-16
Teaching’ from Sue Horder
Sue Horder is a Senior Lecturer in the Education team at Glyndŵr University.
The Professional Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in Post-compulsory Education and Training (PcET) is a one year full-time or a 2 year part-time programme. The PGCE (PcET) focuses on the generic skills required for teaching and learning, rather than those for an individual subject. There is a particularly strong emphasis on active learning and on your own participation and contributions. You will gain a qualification enabling you to teach students aged 16-19 and adults in Further Education, Sixth Form and tertiary colleges, and also in adult and community education settings. This qualification is not suitable for those wishing to teach in primary or secondary schools. This qualification leads to accreditation as a Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) and not Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) which is for those teaching in primary or secondary schools.
The programme is a
delivered through a combination of classroom based sessions at Glyndŵr
University for 2 days per week full-time, and one afternoon a week part-time
(1pm-6pm) throughout the year combined with suitable teaching practice.
Students are required to complete 150 hours of teaching practice over the
duration of the course.
Glyndŵr University only has a Post-16 PGCE qualification. The Post-16 course is vocational and academic, and is 120 credits at Level 6. The Part-Time option is 1 day a week at Northop Campus 1-6pm over 2 years. The Full-Time option is 1 year, with 2 days a week, Monday and Friday, at Northop and 3 days teaching practice (150 hours in total). You are observed 4 times by the University and 4 times by your Mentor during your teaching practice. There are no exams but written assessments; reading of education psychology, etc. There are 35 places on the course.
For your teaching
practice, you will shadow other teachers/lecturers at first and then start to take
over teaching. Your placement can be in England if this is more convenient, the
course leaders can help you to find a placement but you can find your own.
You don’t have to go
straight into a PGCE from the end of your degree. You don’t need a Master’s
Degree before you do the course unless you wish to go into University teaching,
but even then you don’t need a teaching degree to be a University lecturer,
only a Master’s or a PhD.
The Government is
looking at recognising PGCE Post-16 as being suitable for Secondary teaching. If
you have a Secondary PGCE, you can teach Post-16.
People who don’t have a
degree can still do the course, but will come out with a Certificate of
Education.
Cost:
Full-Time = £7,250
If you live in Wales
you can get 50% paid by Welsh Government, and if you are a Graduate of Glyndŵr,
you can get 50% discount off the course. These would need to be checked with
the Welsh government and with the University’s finance department upon
application.
Part-Time = £800 per year.
You will have to apply
directly to the University if you wish to participate in this course.
Content
The courses are
designed in two phases: Phase 1 is designed to support generic skills for
teaching and learning in relation to the following:
- Planning lessons
- Strategies for teaching and learning
- Assessment strategies
- Resources for learning
- Reflection and evaluation of teaching and learning
- Subject specific teaching and learning
Phase 2 considers
extending your practice through creative and innovative strategies for
teaching, learning and assessment and encourages wider reading and scholarly
research to inform and underpin your practice. This phase of the programme
examines the role of a teacher in the learning and skills sector and the impact
of national policies and strategies on subject-specific and organisational processes
and practice. The concept of continuous professional development is explored as
an on-going process that extends beyond the course and into your career as a
teacher in the learning and skills sector.
Professional Graduate Certificate in Education
Phase 1 modules:
- Introduction to Teaching
- The Reflective Practitioner
- Teaching to Enable Learning
- Subject Specialist Pedagogy
Phase 2 modules:
- The Organisation and the Individual
- Teacher as Self-Developer
- Negotiated Study
- Innovation and the Teacher
Certificate in Education
Phase 1 modules:
- Reflective Practice
- Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector
- Learning and Teaching
- Subject Specialist Teaching
- Teaching and the Organisation
- Self-Development and the Teacher
- Negotiated Study – Professional Issues
- Teacher as Innovator
Phase 2 modules:
- Introduction to Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector
- The Reflective Practitioner
- Teaching to Enable Learning
- Subject Specialist Pedagogy
- The Organisation and the Individual
- Teacher as Self-developer
- Negotiated Study – Professional Studies
- Innovation and the Teacher
I enjoyed this talk immensely as I wish to go into teaching myself. Although I want to go into Secondary school teaching and not Post-16 teaching, I found this talk very helpful as a guide to the PGCE process. This helped me to continue my research into teacher qualifications.
Wednesday 6th
March
‘Teaching as an option
for students in the Creative Field’ from Ursula Byrne
Ursula has enjoyed a varied career in the civil service, electricity industry, and social care voluntary sector. She holds a PGCE to teach Welsh at Secondary level and teaches beginners Welsh at undergraduate and post-graduate level. She administers the PGCE course at Aberystwyth University and is the ITET Manager at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning in Aberystwyth. Her academic interests include Irish language teaching.
Ursula will seek to
impart information about teaching as a career, teaching in various fields. She
will give advice on routes available and how to apply for a PGCE course, the
selection progress and general financial matters for PGCE training. Ursula will
also welcome questions at the end of her presentation and has a number of hand
outs for students wanting further information.
The PGCE course is run at Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities as a joint programme.
So what’s so special
about teaching?
A survey was done about
how exciting people find their jobs, so that’s how many times you think you:
- Smile
- Laugh
- Enjoy a good banter
- Praise someone
- Have an in-depth discussion
… within an hour of
working.
In ½ hour, teachers, on
average, said they:
- Smile 10 times
- Laugh 3 times
- Enjoy a good banter 5 times
- Praise someone 9 time
- Have and in-depth discussion 7 times
Teachers have said that
they find young people to be refreshing, different, funny, full of energy and
willing to give feedback.
Creativity can be found
on several different groups of courses;
- Art & Design
- Creative Industries
- Media
- Performance
A degree in any of
these types of courses, can lead to teaching in these possible fields;
- Primary Teaching
- Secondary teaching; o Art
o Design & Technology
o Drama
o Music
o English
o Outdoor Activities & Art
o ICT & Computer Science
To train as a Primary
teacher, you can apply to these Welsh Universities;
- Bangor
- Swansea
- Cardiff
For Secondary teaching,
these Welsh Universities offer PGCE courses to teach these subjects;
- Art – Bangor, Swansea, Cardiff
- Design & Technology – Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Open University
- Drama – Aberystwyth, Cardiff
- Music – Bangor, Cardiff, Open University
- English – Aberystwyth, Swansea, Cardiff
- Outdoor Activities & Art – Bangor
- ICT & Computer Science – Aberystwyth, Swansea, Cardiff
PGCE Course
Entry Requirements
- A degree in the subject (Secondary) or 50% of the subject (joint degree)
- Grade C in GCSE Maths and English Language
- Also in Science for Primary teaching
- This will rise to grade B from 2014 in Wales
- In England you have to pass literacy and numeracy tests at grade B
- In Wales you don’t have to pass at the current time.
Work Experience:
For Primary teaching this
is often a requirement, while in Secondary teaching it is not always a
requirement but always a good idea to have. Experience in the classroom will
help you know that teaching is the career for you. It also helps in the interview.
In Wales the ability to
speak Welsh is not a requirement. You can choose to follow some courses either
in English/Welsh if you are a Welsh speaker. There is a particular demand for
Welsh speakers.
How to apply:
- http://www.gttr.ac.uk
- Reference – the tutor who taught you at University
- Invitation to Interview
- Offer made via the GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Recruitment) and by letter
At the Interview;
- Why you want to be a teacher
- Genuine interest in teaching
- Genuine interest in children
- Good communication and interpersonal skills
- A sense of humour
- Effective professional relationships
- Can learn from and act on advice
- Energy, determination and perseverance
Selection Process:
- Written task of 250-300 words
- Literacy test – ½ hour tick boxes and short sentences
- Numeracy test – ½ hour basic arithmetic
- Oral presentation (as part of the Interview)
- Interview
Reasons for non-selection:
- Courses with a high demand
- Grades
Finance:
Student Finance Wales
is the main go to organisation for financial help for Welsh students.
Welsh Government
Training Grants:
Degree
|
PGCE Secondary (maths/science(excl. biology)/welsh/modern
languages)
|
PGCE Secondary & Primary
|
PGCE Primary Additional
|
1st (2.1 in Physics)
|
£15, 000
|
£3,000
|
£1,000
|
2.1 (not Physics)
|
£10,000
|
£0
|
£0
|
2.2
|
£6,000
|
£0
|
£0
|
Fees & Grants
2013/14 in Wales:
Tuition Fee Grant:
£5,425
Fee due: £3,573
Loans are available in
the same way as for Undergraduate Courses.
Course Year Plan;
PGCE Primary:
- 19 weeks in University
- 19 weeks in at least 2 placement schools
PGCE Secondary:
- 11 weeks in University
- 25 weeks in 2 placement schools
Placement schools can
be found through the North and Mid-Wales Centre of Teacher Education.
Pattern of the Year
PGCE Secondary at Aberystwyth:
- 11 weeks in University
- 5 weeks in September
- 4 weeks in March
- 2 weeks in June
- 25 weeks in 2 different schools
Option Subjects;
- Geography
- History
- Drama
- English
- Welsh
- Games
- ICT
Assessment and Qualifying:
- Continuous assessment
- Assignments, essays, reflection sheet
- Assessed by school mentors on classroom teaching
- Assessed by University tutors in schools on classroom teaching
- 2 Awardso PGCE – academic award from the University
o QTS – professional award from GTCW (General Teaching Council for Wales)
I found this talk
really interesting and helpful for my wish to become a teacher, even though
this is directed more towards creative degree students becoming teachers within
a creative field and not an academic field, like I am thinking about doing.
This was a conference for students in the creative field so this was to be
expected.
PDP
During the summer of
2012, I helped out with some Fire Safety Videos in collaboration with the
Wrexham Fire Service. These would be shown to the students coming to live at
the University’s Halls of Residence.
My class was approached
by, then 3rd Years, David Hale and Chris Mungovan to see if any of
us wanted to help out with these videos in any way. Me and a few others were particularly
interested and we started to have a couple of small meetings to determine who
wished to do have a go at any of the production roles. We were informed that
the students from the Drama and Theatre, Television and Performance students
would be given the chance to act in these videos.
We started filming and
all of us had a go at different production roles. I had a go at being a
soundwoman, holding the boom during takes of the films. I also used the camera
and did a little bit of filming and helped to set up the sets. I also held a small
green screen up for a scene that was done
outside.
I had a lot of fun
helping to make these videos and they can be found here:
Leave it to the Heroes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_pB8bPnNI&feature=share
Miss Flame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALrui77Cqag
Don’t be a Damsel in
Distress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjkIlWf44io
Don’t Invite Death to
the Party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFSRwj54DI
7 Deadly Sins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtVq3Q6joIs
This year I have
started to work as a Supply Teaching Assistant for New Directions as I wish to
become a teacher. This job came about when Jenna Whitman came to Glyndŵr
University and set up a stall for anyone to come and ask about supply Teachers,
Teaching Assistants, Nursery Nurses, Exam Invigilators, etc.
I was accepted into
their agency and was registered at the beginning of January this year. I was
fully cleared and ready to work by the end of January. I have been to a number
of Primary schools and one Secondary school several times over the course of
the last 3 months. At the Secondary school, I am there as a Supply Support
Worker, going into classes with children who have difficulties with their
school work. At the Primary schools, I have been in the Infant classes, Nursery
to Year 2, helping out where necessary as a Supply Teaching Assistant.
I have really enjoyed
working at these different schools and at the Secondary school in particular. I
have found that I am more comfortable in a Secondary school environment rather
than a Primary, although I haven’t had the chance to work with Junior age
children, Years 3-6. I think this is because I interact better with High School
aged children, which is good as I wish to be a Secondary school teacher.
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