Once more I am on the train to London, not quite feeling productive enough to get on with some Cam*Era work and definitely not depressed enough to get on with some lesson planning, so here we go: An update on the travelling and education that is happening in my life at the moment. :-)
But first for some film! As you might remember from January, the National Student Film Association now has a new committee and my journey this morning will lead me to the National Theatre and our first (and possibly only) committee meeting for this year. New committee members are coming from as far as Scotland to discuss what we can do for film students in the UK and I really hope to make their journey worth as much as possible. Of course the past has shown that even with lots of talking, very little can get done, but I keep my fingers crossed! Screentest was, after all, a great success and there is definitely great potential to make the NSFA something outstanding. I have the feeling that one of the most discussed points today is going to be money and the question where we are going to get it from, what it will pay for if we get it and if the NSFA should ever be considered as an organization which pays its committee. Not that I am desperate to get money for what I love doing anyway, but again experience has shown that money definitely increases people’s commitment. Discuss.
Cam*Era preparation are also going fairly well. Although we have so far only received a disappointing number of films, the weekend itself is shaping up to be amazing with great speakers, Corpus Christi and the Picture House cinema as venues and alumni returning to the uni as judges for our awards. Lots of website changes are just under way and we are launching a major advertising campaign this week to get more people to submit. So, if you are reading this and have not yet joined our facebook group, waste another minute of your precious sunny Saturday by going on facebook and inviting all your friends. Please. Done? Thank you!
But on to something less fun but maybe just as exciting. Elections. What, I hear you shout? Exciting? Rather annoying. Yes and no. This is the first year that I am actually aware of the all the general election circus that is going on in the UK and of course my major points of concern are Education: Primary, Secondary, FE and HE. The former is the only one I am not involved in directly at the moment but as the Sats boycotts are on the brick of being on the way (or not?!), it still feeds into the everyday discussion in the staff room and beyond (be thankful if I have not tried to engage you into an outraged dialogue yet!). For anybody who does not live in the UK: SATs are generalized standard tests and all UK children have to take in Year 6, the end of their primary school time. If you have read my blog in the last year you will know that I dont like tests but that, of course, the matter is not as simple as that. The interesting bit at the moment is that of course every party has different policies on it (The Tories want to move it to Year 7, The LibDems want to get rid of it and Labour is not sure).
The thing that really gets me annoyed is that it is actually only the Democrats who are proposing a free school, or rather as it is called in the UK a 'Academy system': more independence for school leaders, teachers and communities and financial support from the government. Although the TES has recently taken to condemning it (and who could blame them, being the Labour paper that they are), which got me quite upset last week, I am still very much in favour of communities being able to administer their own schools and not having to 'teach to the test'. Have a look at the online discussion and I will give you my 2 cent when I have carefully consider whether I would actually dare to think about voting for the conservatives. Shudder.
Kings Cross! More news on the meeting for Democratic schooling in Edinburgh and teaching in Volcano Ash times in a bit :-)
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