Your Hot and Your Cold....

I start this weeks blog with song by Katy Perry's Hot and Cold cos I have been sooooooooo ill this week!

It was on Thursday when it all started during my Arts in Education Seminar. I turned to my friend next to me and said, "please feel my head I think I am burning up!" Luckily the person next to me wasn't a stranger and the caring person that she was, she felt my head and reassured me that yes I was very hot and most probably had a fever. As I have 100% attendence, a little fever wasn't going to stop me! But as the lesson progressed I lacked concerntration, I hardly participated and all I wanted was my bed!

After the horrible journey home I met my boyfriend at my house who is never sympathetic when I am ill and hoped he would notice how ill I was. I went to my room and ended up crying because I felt so bad. My boyfriend was more confused than feeling sympathetic, but he tucked me into bed and left me to sleep and went home. My mum ( the best person to live with when your ill) brought me in a hot water bottle and some paracetamol. I went off to sleep with the hope of feeling better the next day but I was wrong! The next day I felt awful still with a fever and freezing cold body what was going on! My dad was about to look after me, constantly shouting 'Georgina have you taken your tablets' he feels it necessary to continually say when I need to take paracetamol and that it will cure everything....It doesn't. I ended up braving the drive to my boyfriends house so he would look after me on the weekend....What a mistake. Still ill, no mum with the hot water bottle, no dad with the paracetamol. Is this what married life is going to be like? I declared to my boyfriend 'I want my Mum! I want to go home!' Nothng beats being in your own bed, looked after by your mum and dad when your ill!' So I have decided to make the most of the next 8 months before getting married and no longer being able to run home to be pampered before Princess Georgina of East London is no more!

So today is Day6 of this illness, the fever has gone (good riddence) the runny nose has dried up (gross) but the cough prevails!

Bit of a QTS skills test update: I received an email the other day from the TDA ( teacher development agency) the people in charge of the tests. It said there was a fault with marking the punctuation sections of the literacy tests and where they had marked me as failed in my first test it was incorrect and I had actually passed. So passed all 3 tests first time GO me!!!

See ya x x x

Snow-pen day!

Last weekend was one of our great open days that the university holds, for people wanting to have a gander, and find out more information on different courses. It was freezing cold and even though in some parts of the country it was snowing people managed to drag themselves out of their warm houses to attend.

If you didn't know our open days generally run from 10am to 3pm. People arrive at alsorts of times and sometimes don't get to have a look at all they want to if they advise late. I think it is important to plan your day when you visit and open day to truely get an opportunity to experience the university.
Here's a suggested timetable for anyone interested in Primary Education:

    * arrive,sign in  and grab a cup of tea
    * welcome talk
    * student finance talk
    * primary education talk
    * If you have any questions that werent answered in the talk go to the education room and speak to academics
    * Speak to an ambassador about your course and what its like at the university
    * Campus Tour
    * Accomodation Tour
    * Student Life Talk
    * Speak to representatives from aspire/student union/ disabilities/nursery


This week as I have heard is Snow, Snow, Snow, theres more Snow and when will the Snow go! Surprisingly enough I didn't have much uni on this week and have only had an admin session cancelled. One thing I am doing whilst sitting in my warm bedroom, in my adult babygrow is my Core curriculum Assignment. It's 4000 words, which I am not loving writing. Because of the large word limit I decided to break it down into achieveable chunks....So 1000 words a day. I've kept on target and due to complete my 3rd 1000 words to get me to 3000 and boy am I struggling! The plan is to have it finished by the weekend, so next week I can tweak it! Wish me luck!

I had my first Day School Placement on Monday and got to meet my class that I will be teaching from January. They are a lovely year 2 class in Stepney, East London. There are some funny little characters in the class and I can't wait to work with them. I was really scared of going in and meeting them and the school. But once I was there I didn't want to leave. The teaching placements are the best bit of my course. Putting all I have learnt into practice. I'm there again next week on Monday too!

Thats all for now back to the assignment!

Georgina :)

Potter Mad!

I start this blog after watching the most anticipated film this year ...Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1!

I am not much of a book reader (don't tell me english lecturers) so it's no shock when I say I haven't read any of the books. My brother has bought them all and they sit on a bookshelf unread. Maybe one day I will read them to a class while I'm teaching. One of the things lecturers tell us trainee teachers to do is... not to give up reading to children. Whether they are year1 or year 6 all children will benefit from being read to. Anyways back to HP... My Fiance prebooked tickets for the Xtreme screen at Vue Westfield. The screen is like mahoooosive and the sound is emence. We had to arrive early to collect our tickets due to the high demand. It was sold out, every seat filled with excited Harry Potter fans. The atmosphere was amazing and the film...Wow! I got pretty scared at times, wishing I had a pillow to hid behind and I shed a tear in moments too. I'm far too emotional for my own good.

Speaking about being emotional I also had a tear in my eye this week when my lecturer Peter Gregory announced that he was leaving. I was really shocked and proper gutted. He teaches me for my specialisms; SEN and Arts in Education. I thought he would be the most appropriate person to supervise me for my disseration;as it about colour and dyslexia. Although I am really gutted I do also wish him all the best with his new job that is closer to his house than Greenwich, but at a rival uni grrr! Imagine me shedding a tear over a lecturer! How sad am I!

So in my last blog I mentioned I had attempt number 3 for Literacy Skills Test and FINALLY I PASSED! I can happily now fill in applications to the teaching pools, ticking the box to say I have completed all my tests.

This point in the academic calender as a year 3 student is proving extremely challenging. I have lectures like every day and assignments due in next month. I also have my research proposal due in on Thursday. Luckily thats already done as I worked on it with the summer university course I did. This week I will be starting my core assignment on effective teaching. So you will find me in the library when I'm not in a lecture.

See ya x x x

Baby cow!

So this weekend we have the great news to tell you Nikki from the office has given bith to Daisy (real name Louisa) I called her Daisy because Nikki loves cows, almost as much as I love cows.
I can prove I love them more because I have cow print car seat covers, seat belt covers and steering wheel cover (I had to take the steering wheel cover off when i fractured my wrist 2 years ago when I fell off my scooter but haven't put it back on! I also have cuddly cows, a cow print adult baby grow (my fella isn't impressed with that one) and loads of cow print pjs! I might call my own child Daisy one day...doubt my fella will agree to it! To add to my insanity I have already named 2 of my children...I intend on having at least 3, George Ryan Richard Cooper and Jasmine Grace Cooper. The fellas surname as you can see is Cooper and wants a daughter called Minnie or Mini which I would never allow, therefore having Jasmine it can be shortened to Minnie.

I am pretty broody, I think I have been broody for as long as I can remember. One of the great opportunities I have had this week and will next week is looking after baby Charlotte. She is only 3 months old and is very lucky because both her mum and dad are training to be primary teachers at Greenwich. You will often find them swapping over childcare inbetween lectures. She's like the youngest person do receive a uni education lol. As daddy is now in school placement, which lasts 5 weeks in your second year, mummy doesn't have anyone to cover her when she's in lectures. This is when the child loving babysitters that year 3 offers. I had the pleasure of Charlotte's company for 2 hours last week. She wasn't keen on the computer rooms but seemed to quite like the staff and student common room. I had planned on taking her on a walk to Southwood Site so I could sign my Jobshop contract but it was pouring with rain and freezing cold.

Anyways here's an example of the exciting workshops we do on the primary degree: Film making.

We had a 3 hour session where we was shown the software and then left to play and prepare our own mini film. Take a look the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARPaB34oLA
if it doesnt work simply go to you tube and type in puppet love by georgina2384

Hope you have a good week!

Georgina

Priorities, priorities, priorities!

So this week in the life of a year 3 student I have been trying my best to organise myself.

If I wasn't so embarrassed about the state my room was in I would take a photo but you will be happy to know it is all tidy now!

One of the benefits of being engaged to a carpenter is that he can build useful things. In my first year of uni he built me a new wardrobe, a desk and storage for all my books.

As a primary teacher one thing is that you have lots of is books, folders and more folders. Having not anticipated the amount of folders I needed and now accumalated I am now lacking space! One of the most organised things I have done is investing in magazine racks. I have a magazine rack for every subject, once I have finished a lecture or workshop I put whatever I have written or collected in their respective boxes allowing me to put them into folders when needed. This week I have to show my maths folder to my lecturers. Our maths folders show evidence towards the subject knowledge we have to have for our teaching practice and allowing us to obtain qualifies teacher status (QTS) On the note of QTS that dreaded literacy test and guess what...I failed once again! The best thing is that I don't have to pay for retakes. I have taken out a book from the library on the literacy skills test so hopefully after reading it I will have more success! You are probably thinking how can I fail again? Well try them out for yourself; type in QTS literacy practice test into google and follow the links and have a go!

So this weekend was 5th November - Guy Fawkes Night I had planned on attending a locally organised one but it poured down with rain and I didnt want to get muddy. Instead I went to my best mates house and we bought some fireworks and had our own fireworks show. We invited her neighbours round too. My partner was very brave to light them. I really enjoyed watching them and having sparklers...even though it was raining! One of the fireworks after it had gone out, fell back onto my friends roof so she will have a permanant reminder (unless is falls off) of the nights festivities.

Apostrophes

In my last blog I spoke extensively about my QTS skills Tests. You will be happy to know so far I have passed ICT and Numeracy, but as I guessed I failed Literacy :'(
So back to the drawing board. The one good thing about the tests is they tell you why you failed. I failed on the punctuation and comprehension sections and missed passing by 3 marks!

Being so close to passing was annoying but I am now on to figuring out where I am going wrong.

My first issue is apostrophes (') I always forget when I need to use them. And thanks to my mate Phil who has been sitting and patiently helping me to understand. Apostrophes are used when something belongs. So an example 'The school's rule book says you can not run in the corridors. The other time you need them is breaking up words like you're to shorten you are. Sounds crazy that you can go through education achieving A levels and GCSE's and over halfway through a degree but use apostrophes wrong!

I've got my retake for Literacy on Tuesday so once again wish me luck!

Also this week I had 'The most boring lecture in the world!' We had guest lecturer and it was awful! Last time we had a guest it was the amazing Andrew Lambirth! A genius lecturer who inspired me so much for my teaching career. He was so good the uni decided to keep him and I believe he will be doing a couple more lectures in the future, I can not wait! Back to this boring lecture it was on 'team work'...seriously when you are in 3rd year of a degree after having to do many group presentations, there is definitely no need for a lecture on it! The guest lecturer would ask us to discuss with person next to us on the topic and all you heard was people saying 'core aint this boring!' I also ended up on facebook on my iphone and noticed alot of people from my class also online. I wonder if the other lecturers felt the same way as the rest of us....like what was the point?! This is not to put a downer on my degree as I absolutely love University of Greenwich and its an amazing institution for Primary Teaching degree but I will defo be giving some feedback at the end of year on that one!

That's all for now!

Georgina :)

Teacher Skills tests?

So I finally made it to the 3rd year of my primary teaching degree! It has flown by but not without a lot of reading and hard work. It has made me realise, how little I did on my previous degree in accounting and finance and why I didn't pass it!

Anyways, my final year! During this year it is a requirement from the teacher development agency (TDA) that all teacher must pass 3 skills tests. No matter what age you teach or subject ...you have to pass...so a maths test for a pe teacher will prove challenging! Luckily as a primary teacher, we are supposed to be well rounded with our knowledge of all subjects, but to the level of these tests... not really!


The tests are: ICT - easy peasy! if you can use powerpoint, excel, word and outlook you will find it a breeze. I took this exam last week and did it in 15mins even though its a 45 min exam.

Numeracy - Mental Arithmetic - 1min to work out your calculations very tough and general maths questions that range from SATs -GCSE maths! (when you did you GCSE's 9 years ago) refreshing that knowledge hasn't been too bad luckily I liked maths when i was younger! I had booked this test for the end of the week, but after doing some practice questions, I felt confident and moved it to this evening! Wish me luck!

My final test is Literacy - A spelling test - not too bad I can handle it and then a grammar correction part- This I'm not so hot at! I hate grammar! It is where I fall flat. If you read my blogs on a regular basis you will see many grammatical errors. But I have till the end of the week to get practicing, in the hope to pass!

Most of the other students on my course are also taking these tests as I write. And facebook status' are dedicated to the dispair, stress and negative thoughts associated with testing! On a brighter note though if we do fail these tests you can just retake them at no cost until you pass. Refering to the pe teacher I mentioned earlier who is a friend she passed ICT 1st time Numeracy and Literacy after 5 attempts! Shows how hard they really are!

In my next blog i'll let you know how I got on...or if i have any retakes to do!

Georgina :)

Clear Off!

So it’s the end of clearing, the phones have gone quiet, only partner colleges have courses available and we are moving back to our office at Avery Hill. To top it all off our team leader Richard.... it’s his last day! We are all sooo sad. To help him with his future, we purchased some stationary for him, as we knew he wouldn’t have bought anything and he starts tomorrow. Tonight we will be going to the Indian restaurant near the uni for a meal then heading to the gypsy moth pub for their pub quiz. I am ultra competitive and with quite random broad general knowledge, we should do well.

As I have probably mentioned before everyday I drink a chocolate cream frappuccino from Starbucks. Tomorrow will be the last time I shall be having this before we move to Avery Hill as there isn’t a local Starbuck! Gutted!

From next week I will only be working for 2 days till I leave the enquiry uni myself. Due to my crazy timetable I can’t commit to working there. However I do still get to work for the education liaison unit. This means that I go out to schools and give talks on student finance, benefits of higher education and also help out higher education fairs giving guidance for future applicants. It’s more face to face work which I don’t mind.

I have some great news today I passed year 2. I had one resubmission which the team have helped proof read before I sent it in and I passed. This means I will successfully progress to my final year woooohoooo! Will defo behaving a drink to celebrate.

Tomorrow is going to be an even sadder day as we will be saying goodbye to those in the clearing team who won’t be moving back to Avery Hill with us. I will miss working with them and I hope they have had a great experience working within the enquiry unit and apply to work next year. For anyone who’s interested we take applications via the jobshop from April time.

This might be my last year of clearing as I’m getting married next year but you never know if I get my way and have the wedding in England then I will be back.
As promised in my last blog here’s the pic of our team from theme your team!

Alice In Bloggerland

Can’t believe its Friday already! This week has flown by, especially because it has been jam packed!

For the last 3 days I have been busy with a Summer University course. It’s not because I’ve failed courses, it’s to help me with my final year studies. I’m doing a course called ‘Dissertations: Getting Started’. This year I will be doing a 7000 word dissertation, and considering I am pants at essay writing, I need all the help I can get. The course has been helping me to identify a question for my research proposal. I’ve met other people from a wide range of disciplines and ages which has been great.

At this time of year in the Enquiry Unit it’s a lot quieter and so we are given the task of having a team theme! Our team theme is Alice in wonderland! I am Alice! Other team members are The Late Rabbit (Rachel), The Caterpillar (Aliya), The Cheshire Cat (Nikki), Tweedledee (Sonia) and Tweedledum (Solange), A Flamingo (Thameena) and the one and only Mad Hatter (Richard) Our team has team spirit unlike others who have chosen to strike! Hopefully we will take pictures so that you can see our efforts. I have also made lots of cupcakes for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party so the Admissions team are gonna love us!

Tonight is the clearing BBQ; I’m supposed to be at the dissertations course at the same time so I will have to stuff my face and run to the course. Hopefully I’ll win a prize but it’s very unlikely!

I have been doing some wedding planning for my wedding in Lindos, Rhodes. Google it to give you an idea of the place where I’ll be getting wed! There are so many companies out there that offer wedding planning service, so I devised a Comparethewedding.com style table to work out which is the most value for money. My mum said to me last night whilst I was baking ‘Hope you will be saving your money from all this work you're doing to pay for your wedding!’ I was like ‘No! You’re paying for it!’ It is after all tradition that the parents of the bride pay! I’m trying to keep this wedding as budget as possible. The ‘fiancé’ (hate that word) says our Greek wedding should cost no more than £5k lets live in hope!
Anyways bye for now! Have a good weekend! X x x

Peas in a Pod

As the phones have started calming down, we have had more time in the office to have a chat with our fellow clearing officers. It’s really nice to finally be able to hold a conversation. My quote of the week which was taken from Rachel (who sits next to me) ‘inner beauty doesn’t get you laid’ This particular quote does not represent the views of University of Greenwich (put that in to cover our butts) but it does cause controversy. I also have this quote as my Facebook status. Did you know that employers these days access your social networking profiles to gain an insight into your life and can use it when selecting people for interview? So either keep you status’ decent or up your privacy settings!

Its pea season! One of the many quirky things about me is that I love garden peas! I don’t eat frozen peas or processed peas or even mushy peas, but I looooove peas fresh out of the pod! They are available in most local supermarkets at the moment. M&S have special offers on them.

I’ve got my future father-in-law's wedding on Saturday. So I’ve been pruning myself especially for the special day. Wednesday I had my nails done and yesterday I got a weave done (a couple of tracks of hair similar to hair extensions that are stitched into little plaits) Tonight I shall be getting my eyebrows threaded and eyelashes extended. A lot of effort us women go through to look extra hot!

Nikki has been keeping me updated with my calorie intake. I’m not on a diet but she reckons I am eating an extra days worth of food per week! This info cannot get back to my bf because he won’t be impressed hehe.

Today we are saying goodbye to 3 members of the clearing team; Emma, Bally and Julia are moving on to graduate jobs. They all are such amazing people and I wish the best of luck! Check out their final blogs!

P.S: I was highest call taker in for Thursday in my team! Woop! And Hannah makes amazing cakes!

Main Clearing... Arggh!

So I’m normally pretty good with keeping up to date with my blogs but this week it’s been manic in the office!

Look Ma! I'm Famous!

A level results day out office took 6851 calls...Personally I took 130 calls. I was 3rd place in the highest number of calls taken. Go Me! Nikki who my fellow blogger and is also on my Team took the highest amount of calls a whopping 158!
A level day was non-stop phone calls and where we would love to offer everyone a place it’s not necessarily possible. So if you didn’t get the grades you expected and you’re in limbo aka as clearing, first things first do some research. Our buddies and UCAS have details of all the universities offering courses. Please don’t be the person just wants a place and doesn’t care about the course.

University is not something you should undertake without careful consideration. You need to really love the subject you are going to study or it’s just going to make the next 3-4 years of your life very hard. Do you remember those dreaded history lessons (never liked history in school) when you had no motivation to do work. The same will happen if you’re taking on a degree in something you have no interest in.
So what can you do? If all else fails access courses! If you are missing those crucial GCSE’s or A Levels they are the solution! Access courses are run at local colleges and dependent on what qualifications you already have you won’t have to complete the whole thing just the bits you missing. There are access courses specific to you particular interest or general access to higher education.
So what’s keeping me going through this stressful time I hear you ask...Starbucks Chocolate Cream Frapuccino with cream on top! Me and Hannah Arnold (previously Tinson she got married in June I was lucky enough to attend her be.a.utiful wedding) visit Starbucks on our lunch break to satisfy our cravings!

By the way update on the wedding preparations ...Why do jewellery shops not stock all sizes! I don’t want to wait I want a ring now! So I’m going to order online instead. Need an engagement ring before Saturday as I have my future father-in-laws wedding to attend and everyone will want to see what’s on my finger!
Last but not least I was photographed for some online publicity stuff on the website so you can see a photo of me holding a massive sign! It’s pretty ridiculous have a look... http://www.gre.ac.uk/pr/articles/latest/a1875-clearing

Clearing

So it’s this time of year when I get to work full time in the Enquiry Unit office. Answering queries from new applicants and taking applications.

It’s a very busy time of year for us, especially on A Level results day!

So some hints and tips for calling to make your life easier and ours:

Are you making a clearing application?

Have you got any outstanding offers?

Yes – You can only make an application when you don’t have any. So go check on UCAS!

No. Good Stuff! Now you need a clearing reference number from UCAS. Once you have your Clearing reference number, you have got your UCAS personal ID, You have all your grades finalised. Check the Greenwich website if we are taking applications for your course. Then give us a call 0800 005 006.

During clearing we look at your qualifications to determine whether we can offer you a place. Make sure you UCAS application have your GCSE as well as A Level/BTEC or whatever your qualifications are written on your application. If you don’t have them written on there it’s more likely that you won’t be offered a place.

You haven’t heard from us after 2 weeks? Give us a call! We can check the status of your application. Our academics handle many applications so please be patient. Keep an eye on your email as this is how we will let you initially. If you have given us a hotmail email address; emails sometimes bounce back so try and provide us with an alternative, yahoo, gmail, aol..... But not to worry, just add our email to your safe sender list offers@gre.ac.uk and there shouldn’t be a problem!

Have you got an offer?

Remember to reply to it asap and then go to UCAS and select Greenwich as your clearing choice! The next step will be a fee assessment form that you will receive in the post, as well as joining instructions. Our online registration starts from 1st September so you will also receive an email that day with your login details. Any problems don’t hesitate gave us a call 0800 005 006!

Hope you found this helpful! :)

FUNeral

On returning from my holiday in Turkey I was unfortunate to hear that my aunt passed away (my dad’s sister) as she didn’t get married or have children, my Dad is classed as her next of kin. This means we have to sort out all of the funeral plans. My Dad being in his late 60’s has given me the task of sorting it all out. I tell you it is LONG.COM.

I was very fortunate that she had paid for her funeral in advance. She arranged it almost a year ago through the Co-Op...pretty freaky! They pretty much sort everything out for it, but it was up to me to choose the hymns n readings, and trawl through many photos to find the perfect photo for the order or service. I am so glad that I am a big fan of photo shoots so if I was ever to pass away there’s quite a range of good pictures of me.

So the funeral’s arranged for Monday 16th August. My Dad suggested the Friday of the same week but that is one of the busiest times in the clearing office so would not want to take the day off. My Dad and I are off to Costco tonight to buy some alcohol. I’m guessing that the alcohol will be the fun bit that funeral is made up of. (FUNeral)

I seem to have become an expert in the dealing of funeral, probate and death certifications, so I guess if any more family members pass away I will be back on the case!

It’s probably not the best of topics to write a blog about but it’s what my week has consisted of! Happy Monday!

I'm Back!

I made it back from Turkey and guess what; I’m engaged! The fella (as I like to refer to him as) proposed as we was leaving our hotel on the coach. Not a very romantic place at all! With a 5 lira ring that has now turned my finger green (5 lira= £2ish) He will be buying me something better ASAP!


I’ve been very lucky with regard to my return to work. Turkey is 2 hrs ahead of London which means I’ve been waking up at 9am Turkey time, which is 7am English time, so it wasn’t as hard to wake up this morning. I am pretty brown and whilst away got some highlights done to my hair (not that anyone has noticed)

My initial hotel I stayed in was gross! It stank of raw sewage! When I complained to the staff they laughed! I was straight onto the travel company I booked with to move me. They couldn’t find me a hotel so I went on a search for one myself and luckily stumbled across a lush one. Travel Company refunded what I had paid and I booked in to the new hotel successfully. The people were so friendly and are now my friends on facebook. Would I go back to Turkey....Yes maybe not for 2 weeks but 1 week would be cool. Turkey’s not in the EU so you can get duty free which is a bonus!

I am happy to be back in England... back to sleeping in my bed...back to not having an upset tummy after every meal :)

Have a good weekend!

My first blog! 2 days till Turkey!

Hello reader! So I am sitting at my desk in the enquiry unit thinking about my holiday. I am going to Turkey on Wednesday for 2 whole weeks with my boyfriend Ryan. Its 2 days till I leave and I haven’t packed. I am normally really organised and have all my clothes sorted a week in advance, but I have been working most days BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! And I can’t seem to find a big enough suitcase! My friend said she’s going to drop one off to me today or tomorrow morning but this is going to be too late! I have to leave straight from work tomorrow to get to my boyfriend's ready to leave on Wednesday! (PANIC!) So what do I do? Go buy a big suitcase or wait for my friend? I do go on holiday at least once a year so I should just buy one! Think my brother is going away in October, so he will need one to use to. So through writing this I have come to the conclusion to need to buy a suitcase!

So I’m going to Turkey, a place called Altinkum flying in to Bodrum Airport. Going to have to travel for 2hrs when I arrive in a bus to reach my hotel. I am a budget holiday person. Staying in a BnB for 14 nights. Its only 2* but right on the beach and near to the pubs and bars! I will be spending most of my time on the beach sunbathing. Trying to change the yellow skin to golden brown. I tan really easily! Can’t wait! I have a wedding to go to at the end of the month that I would like to look extra nice for.

On a Uni note...Results are out today! So I only have to resubmit my English coursework which is a result! Having got this far in my first degree, I am really happy...will redo the assignment when I get back from Turkey!
Thanks for reading dudes! :)