confessions of my workplace

a good read..its so true!
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/worklife/careers/a34273/confessions-of-a-nandos-worker/

Task 4c- Literature

I have registered for the MDX library and i have requested a few books to be posted to me. The main one i am excited to read is Child development and learning through dance / James H. Humphrey ; foreword by Lynnette Y. Overby. It took me a while to find a book that was on child development but focused on learning through dance i hope this book gives me a good insight into what I'm looking for.

If its a good read i will let you all know for anyone else who is wanting to do an enquiry around a similar topic.

SIG Meet Up

The other day i met up with Lydia from BAPP course she is a very good friend of mine, we studied at the same drama school and live not to far away from each other so we decided to meet up grab a coffee and discuss our enquiries to pick each others brain! it was quite comforting that we both felt in the same mind space which is are we going down the right path with our choices so far? We discussed our ideas and started to brain storm the key words to see if they had any connections. I know that i want to do my enquiry around child development through dance but i don't want to make it to vague that it would turn out to be an endless enquiry with no answer. These are some of the notes i made under the branch of child development:

activeness
obsesity
life style choices
social skills
learning how to copy
middle class people?
initial reasons behind why parents send their children to dance classes so young
does it effect us in the later life
are people who danced from a young age still active now?
why do the dance teachers provide lessons for children so young?

I know that Lydia really found it useful with having my input into her ideas and once we started the swing of brain storming it just flowed naturally until we had a page full of notes and ideas!

I know there is a lot to work with and a lot to think about but in the mean time i am going to look at some literature about child development and maybe ill find a specific topic which interests me the most.

Any comments or feedback would be appreciated!

Expanding my career path

I have spent the afternoon exploring all my different options around my professional inquiry and re-reading through a booklet my teaching agency gave to me a few weeks ago at the time i didn't think i would have much time or money to take on any extra courses but after looking over them again maybe there are some courses on here that would be hugely beneficial for me not just for my studies but for my CV and future job options. I am really interested in working with children with special needs especially in the arts department but on paper i do not have the correct skills or qualifications to be considered for this yet. I am really looking into taking part in one or two of these courses some are online and some are just a day session. This course is really making me want to broaden my horizons and really get the most qualifications under my belt so my CV is as strong as it could be. Not 100% if any of these courses are right for me but i suppose you don't know until you try! I am so keen to develop my skills and having any extras is a massive bonus. If anyone is wanting to do any of these courses with me please get in touch! 

I am particularly interested in the following few:

Level 1 Autism awareness training

child protection in education-educare

supporting SEN

Task 4a

After our Skype session a few days ago I've had abit of time to think about my professional inquiry and what kind of topic I'm really interested in. In the Skype i mentioned that i have previously taught some baby ballet and tap classes ages 3-5, this came into my head straight away when we spoke about it has to be something that we are really interested in else we will not want to fully commit to it. I am intrigued into the minds of children in dance especially the ages of the classes i have taught, this for me could be a potential inquiry idea but it was mentioned that it its always advised to do topics around children unless you are fully working in a school environment, which for me is not the case at the moment. I do have my DBS check but i have not as of yet worked in a school with young children. I am really interested in working with children with behaviour problems or special needs this is something that i have looked into.i then thought to myself what is something that i could really get stuck into and really find out a lot about backed up with evidence? I know my avenue of choice is going towards teaching at the moment but as someone mentioned in the Skype session a previous student was training to be a teacher but because they picked a professional enquiry to do with the industry it really got them back into wanting to audition and be apart of that world again. Is that potentially an option for me? maybe it is, maybe that is the push i need to get the passion back for wanting to perform myself instead of teaching.

As it stands at the moment my professional enquiry is a bit up in the air with a lot of thoughts flying round my head but to narrow it down a bit i have made of list of topics of interest and from this list i will consider which will be the best topic for me, so far i have:

How does dance develop children in the early years?
Does performing arts help people with disablilties?
How serious is performing arts taken in a school environment?

These a just a vague first few ideas that i have if anyone knows how i could expand any of these thoughts i would love to hear from you!

Im looking for a SIG group to join or for anyone to join me who is also interested in doing their professional inquiry around teaching or a school based environment please comment if you are going down the same route as me :)

Skype Chat Module 2

Me and a few others had a Skype session last night and it was a great welcome back into the course. I did enjoy the previous skip chat but i felt this one was a lot more personal to beginning our professional inquiries. First thing we discussed was that Paula loves pies!! After reading the module 2 handbook and reader 4 i was excited to get a better insight into how to get the ball rolling with module 2! we discussed SIG groups and how important they will be for us to progress with our enquiries. It was interesting to hear everyones ideas for their enquiries so far, it has left me with a lot to think about within my own enquiry and where i want to take it. I feel like at the moment I'm going to play around with a few question ideas and see where they take me.

Coffee Shop Chat

So i have just finished a Skype session with a mix of module 2 and module 3 students. I enjoyed listening to what everyone in module 3 is up to and how they are planning to approach their final tasks. It comforting to hear that we are all in the same position at one point or another!
I think the biggest advice i have took away from this sessions is LITERATURE!! like so many people said my first go to is google and searching the web, it makes me think well if googled doesn't know the answer then I'm stuck, but really there are so many other resources at such an easy grasp which i need to take more advantage of. Im going to look on the middlesex uni library more often and maybe order some books. I am also going to try to get into a library more it seems silly that i have such easy access to all these sources but never think of looking any further than the internet. I also learnt that i need to stop searching for things that will have the same opinion as me, it is all part of the learning experience to not always write about something just because said person agrees with you. scheduling is another big thing for me, it was great to hear how module 3 students plan their time and how they fit the work in around such a busy life style. I took a lot away from this Skype session even if i wasn't as vocal it felt nice to just sit and really take in what everyone else said and what advice they had to give us before we enter the world of module 2!!
If anyone from the session has any comments please do and please follow me! would love to follow you all back to see your journey into module 3 good luck!!