SOUTH WALES

Sunday, 26^th  February 2017

Today we had an Educational visit to South Wales.  It has been a long day !

At 7:45 am all the 2^nd week course European teachers met  outside Cheltenham town Hall. Neil introduced us to each other during our way to The Big Pit National Coal Mining Museum of Wales at Blaenavon World Heritage Site https://museum.wales/bigpit/   while he showed us the beautiful countryside and explained some curiosities about the area: in Wales all the advertisements are written in both languages, Welsh and English. Imagine you  could only see this sign “Amgueddfa Lofaol Cymru”    (it means National Coal Museum)

Oh my god! What a strange sensation to be at 90 m²   underground.  “It is true that you can  experience the sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere of an authentic coal mine”.  Unfortunately, my English level is not high enough to understand Welsh people, they have a hard accent and it was difficult to follow the explanations during the visit.  But the miner who guided the one-hour tour underground was very patient with us and repeated  all that we required him to repeat  quietly.

Then, we spent two hours walking along  St Fagans Welsh National History Museum, Cardiff. It is an open-air Museum of Welsh life and St Fagans Castle, where you can explore how people in Wales have lived, worked and spent their leisure time. It was raining a lot and I couldn´t enjoy much.  

https://museum.wales/stfagans/

Then, we had our free afternoon in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. This is the flag of Wales, I really love it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Wales

Balcarras School

Friday  February the 24th

Today we have visited Balcarras School.:

- Welcome at  8 :45  by Neil Baxter,  Deputy Headteacher. While drinking coffee,  he has given us our Programme for the day, and some details of the School .  

-  9 :00 am:  two students accompanied us for a tour of the school and then we returned to the reception. We could take some photos to the building and classrooms. 

- 9.55-10.50 am:  teachers of Maths were collected by the staff to take lessons of Maths KS3-KS5, 18- year -old students. No more than 15 per class. Mechanics lesson, about "particles".

At 10.55 Coffee in staffroom

At 11.10-12.10 We had another lesson , but  this time the subsidiary subject was Physics. Students were studying Stars (Asronomy).

At 12.10 -1.10 We had a meeting with Burke, Headteacher. We discusssed about  English Education system and how Balcarras operates: House system

Each child who joins Balcarras is placed in a House.  The four Houses are Foley, Graveney, Ottewell and Selvey. Nowadays there are 250 children in each one, except in the last one, with 400 students, that they are in the 6^th form.  Children with older brothers and/or sisters already at Balcarras normally join the same House. Year 7 tutor groups are taught together with the exception of mathematics and are gradually introduced to Balcarras.

Although each house has its own “personality” certain principles apply to all. It is hoped that each House provides pupils with an education of the highest quality so that they leave Balcarras with the qualifications, skills and personal qualities they need to lead a successful life.

Balcarras: “From strength to strength”

Students in this School are from  11 to 18 years old. It is a coeducational and comprehensive centre. It is known as an Academy School: 11-14  Key Stage 3; 14-16: GCSE; 16-18: A-level.   Staff: 81 teachers and 24 teaching assistants.

The ETHOS: Attendance, Behaviour, Classroom, Enjoyment, Extracurricular and Environment.

At 1.10 : Lunch and reflection with Head of Business/Economics, Head of Mathematics and Head of Science and several teachers from the staff.

We departed at 14:00 am 

Dean Close Independent School

Wednesday  22^nd February  2017

Today: Observation of lessons in chosen subjects and meetigns with Heads of Departments. We went to DEAN CLOSE School. It’s an independence school (that means private in France/Spain)……In the morning, they have welcomed us in a tea-room and each of us went to several Maths lesson. The pupils were been prepared for the London Examinations IGCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

We interacted with students while they were solving exercises related to the application of displacement, velocity and acceleration.

We helped some of them and chated with the teacher who was very friendly.

After that, a teacher accompanied us to a Spanish language lesson or French language lesson, where we could see that the methodology used for teaching languages in England is similar than the ones in our countries. 

Chosen Hill School

Monday, 20^th   February 2017

After having breakfast with my partner Sandrine, Stuart brought us to his School where we met Neil, the organiser, who picked us up and accompanied to Chosen Hill Secondary School “. We stayed there from 9:00 am to 15:00 pm, in different lessons of Algebra, Geometry and Statistics. There, we met many teachers who teach Maths.

I could see that the way of teaching Maths in English is not so different from teaching it in Spanish, though there are some variations in the curricula because of the education system.
I observed Maths classes all day (5 courses) it was very interesting to see the different ways of teaching.
The students were  from 11 to 16 years old and were in the year  from 7 to 11 (level). At  school there are 4 or 5 steps in a level for the students who have difficulties when learning the knowledge  in Maths, and in English. There are about 18 to 26 students in each class, and in several of them there are an assistant teacher who sits down next to those students who have special needs.  Students have got a workbook and a text book that they can take home or not (they can leave it in the Maths classroom). What I liked the best is that they have Subject Classrooms. 

After finishing our day visit, at 3:00 pm, we went to Gloucester by bus in 15minutes.  We discovered the Cathedral where the movie Harry Potter was shot, it’s an Anglican church.   It’s very nice, I loved it.

To know something about Anglicanism  visit the link 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanism