Finshed... Already?

Hi everyone,

So, I know by the sounds of last weeks post it seems I had a full term left of university... well I think I judged that wrong because I've basically finished for the WHOLE year! Yes I said whole year.

Let me explain...

1. Both of the essays I spoke abut last week have been handed in which therefore means no more lectures for those two particular units.
2. My Lifelong unit there is just a poster presentation to be handed in which needs working on today and tomorrow ready to be printed on Monday for handing in on Wednesday next week, the presentation of the poster will be the Wednesday after for an hour... pretty much finished that unit.
3. Finally, Digital Age is the one I have the most work left for, including an audio presentation and the rest of my webfolio to finish off for handing in on the 25th May, this unit can all be prepared from home and if necessary I can attend drop-in sessions on Thursday's between my normal lecture slots of 10am-12pm, however, I feel well prepped for this unit and probably will not feel this is necessary to my webfolio.

I am pretty much telling you that I won't be at uni after the 6th May until October when I begin my third and final year of my Education Studies degree. This certainly does not mean I won't have things to talk about as I already have some exciting news to fill you all in on.

I don't know if I mentioned in any previous posts, but I was stressing a couple of weeks back about redoing my Science GCSE. Mainly because I really do not have the focus to redo a GCSE subject seeing as I'm not working at degree level education and it just really seemed ridiculous. It was also mega expensive to do. I dug out my old GCSE certificates and realised that I did in fact get a C at GCSE Additional Science and a D at core Science. Now additional is actually harder than core so it is bizarre how I managed these grades but that's what happened, I spoke to my personal tutor who also happens to know his stuff when it comes to education, teaching and applying for PGCE's and he enlightened me by telling me that it is of course an accepted Science GCSE qualification which I really did know but I had just worked myself up about redoing it and forgot about the simple answer to this problem. So, all is good in the world, I do not have to think about my GCSE's again and I can focus on finding the perfect teacher training course for me over the summer months, ready to apply before Christmas this year.



Another amazing piece of news is that I GOT A PLACEMENT. I have been ringing round different schools trying to get a placement for a good month now and I have managed to bag myself a placement with years 5&6 at a brilliant little primary school where I have actually worked with younger years before. I am so excited about this, I start today and can't wait to tell you all about it in next weeks post so be sure to look out for that one!

Other than that, I had a hilarious night on Monday with so many of my lovely friends and am completely buzzed about heading to London tomorrow to watch the London marathon. London is one of my favourite places in the world, I love how the city never sleeps and there's always something to do there. I can't wait to live and work there one day, but for now home is where I want to be.



Until next time,

M.

Social Constructions of Childhood (Exam Overview)

Ok, so I think I need to go into more detail about which subjects my exams are on and what the revision I'm doing entails.

Social Constructions of Childhood is one of the four subjects that I have been studying for my first year of university. It involves a lot to do with the history of education and the theorists supporting these views. I'm going to break this post down into two parts.. firstly I will talk about section A of the exam and secondly section B.

There are four questions in total, two for each section and we have to answer one question from each section.

Section A
This is examining part two of the unit and the first question supposedly deals with older sociological thoughts which therefore means we have to talk about theorists and their ideas about childhood, dating back to historical childhood.

The second question is dealing more with recent sociological thought. So, new theorists ideas on childhood and perhaps linking back to the ideas from previous years and seeing if there are links? Well that's my thoughts on how I would answer that question anyway..however even though I will look over this question I am mostly going to be revising for the first question as I feel this will be the easiest option for myself.

So, for my revision I have made a mind map containing a section for each theorist/idea that may come up under the first question in section A, and I have included a few bullet points of the most important things for each theorist/idea.

Section B
This is all to do with part three of the social constructions unit.
The first question focuses on images, culture or literature. So, how the child is perceived in these views.

The second question, which is the one I have chosen to write about focuses on children in film, TV or news. I decided to pick this one because I remember enjoying this particular lecture the most out of the two and I find it overall more interesting to talk about.

I think it is so important to pick the question that you feel most comfortable talking and writing about, there is no point picking the one that you think the examiners will 'like most' because there is no such thing. It should be interesting to you and therefore encourage you to revise more and come out with a good result in the end because you took the time and made the effort to construct a good response to your specific question.

I hope this blog post gives you an idea into the structure and layout of what you will experience in terms of exams if you are coming to education studies at the University of Bedfordshire next year.

On another note I think I should inform you all that I was able to choose my optional units for next year. It took a while but I am happy with the options I have chosen and I think these are definitely the best ones for me.

If you don't already know, in year two of education studies everyone has the same two core subjects and we are given about five or six optional units to choose from so I chose 'Lifelong Curriculum' because it is recommended for anyone wanting to study a PGCE (which gives you qualified teaching status) after their degree which is what I want to do, and also 'Children and Young people in the Digital Age' which is briefly described on our unit selection document as these three questions:

1. What are the challenges and opportunities experienced by children and young people in the digital age?

2. How are these constructed and understood in different media, settings, policies and practices?

3. What are the potential implications of new technologies for children and young people’s welfare, education, employment and social experiences?

I decided on this other option because it seemed the most interesting for me and I enjoy working with computers and this is one of the main things we will be using, it also involves a 5000 word e-portfolio for our only form of assessment which encouraged me even more because exams are not for me! 

How I felt when trying to choose my options!

Speak soon!