Alice Davies 13th March 2012 ( Guest Speaker)

Alice Davies is from Widening Access Wales. She came to give a lecture to us about her work and what their role in educatin is. Widening Access is about making sure people from different backgrounds get equal oppurtunites. She works with people withdisabilites, people from ethnic minorities and people from low income families.

‘We want to see a country where every individual is given equal opportunity to fulfil their potential, maximise their earning potential and contribute to society’. (Jane Davidson Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, March 2002).


The programme is supported and funded by the higher education funding council for Wales (HEFEC) And their aim is to increase progression into higher education like colleges and universities, help to enhance achievment and to work with relative social advantage. Children at different stages in their school careers will need different kind of help, some more intense and some just need guidance to help them on their path in schools.
Their programme is as followed;
-Primary School = Art Arts in Action and STEM workshops
- Year 7 = Literacy support
- Year 9 = ACE days, mentoring, saturday clubs and techno camps
- Year 10 = Spring School, STAR days, taste of university or college life, saturday clubs
- Year 11 = GCSE Revision, college taster days, study skills, mentoring.








These schemes really seem to help the children become more confident in themselves to try new things and feel safe knowing there is always help at hand. The change of programmes every year ensures the pupil to feel they are learning new things, and it is also fresh for them, so they dont have to be taught repetivitely.

I found this lecture to be my favourite. My father is a Chief Inspector in South Wales police and is currently unit head of Soith Wales Police Minorites Support unit. I feel that Alice' and my fathers jobs are similar in the way that they are trying to create a safer, better place for people to be in. Both are trying to increase confidence and trust in our world.

Suzie Pugh - ICT Project Part 1

Knowing that the project assigned to us was called ' My sense of place'
a bunch of mad, cool ideas came to me ,  i was going to do about 100 things in my sketchbook that would portray my sense of place. However as i started thinking about what 'My sense of place' really meant to me, i started to come down from my cloud. To be honest there was not one place that really stood out for me, i have lived in four different houses, therefore having 4 different bedroooms ( so my bedroom was out of the picture) i have played and grown up in several of my families homes and to be quite honest i was comfortable whereever i was. Then it hit me! My sense of place could be anywhere, as long as the things i loved and the people i cherished where around me! Perfect!
So know my sketchbook portrays the things in my life that make me happy and sad, people who make me who i am, and the things that i need in my life to put a smile on my face. It may be cliche but what way to give a personal peep hole into my life! here are a few pictures of my ideas.

Suzie Pugh -- Poster design

Before easter, our last session with Suzie was about advertising. She first showed us half pictures of logos of popular brands to see how many we could guess. The images popped into our mind with only seeing half a picture. We then discussed why this happened, was it colour? was it size? or was it because the brands were familiar to us, used in our every day lives, and constantly put infront of us. The task she then set us over easter, was to design a poster that advertised a food product in a memorable way. Lucy, Ffion and I were in a group, we decided to use fresh fruit and vegetables, as we decided these items were used daily and important to peoples diets. We started to brainstorm about the product and the poster, and what it should say to the public. We decided on the background colour green as it represents nature and the fresh outdoors.We decided on the name 'FRESH' for our brand, it is short, and memorable and gives a sense of good healthy food. Our slogans also represent healthy food like 'Eat smart' and we also used 'Best of British' as we thought this would appeal to people as the food is grown near by and its british like we are. We then went over Ffions to use her photoshop software on her laptop. Ffion works in a restaurant and was able to take good pictures of fruit and veg which we then edidted onto the poster and backed up on gold card. We added a website and address to the poster to make it more realisitc, and then we were finished with out design a brand poster.