By now, I am back at the hostel to have a bit of a breather before my friend and I are going to head out for the first World Cup game of the year. So far, I've had a great time in Florence. This evening we took a walk around the city centre and I bought a pasta roller to inspire me when I get back home.
The conference is interesting (and I am still super chuffed about being here) but unfortunately I don't quite feel that it lived up to its title 'Future of Education'. It's been a shame to hear a few vague desinterested people talk about their commercial projects and I've really been missing the amazing key notes I am used to from other conferences. That said, the programme for tomorrow looks a little bit better and I already made a good friend today. I am also looking forward to my presentation tomorrow afternoon.
My talk is going to be on Free Schools (see post below) and unfortunately we've been having a really tough time with the New Schools Network and the application in general. It seems that one of the primary requirements for the applications at the moment is that the team has to have at least one outstanding school leader as one of the main applicants and although we've got a lady who is helping us with it, she is unsure whether she'll be able to commit. And as a busy principal who would be able to dedicate an extensive amount of time to a project like a completely different school to their own?!
My friend Natalie (who is also an academic) and I have been thinking and writing extensively on our application and I am hoping to try to finish a prospective journal article at the end of June. Additionally, I would really like to finish my PhD data gathering by the end of the month. In three weeks' time I am seeing the Film Literacy teachers for the last time and have just sent out a batch of questionnaires to them. Hopefully at least some of them are going to come back!
I have recently started to work with SPSS and NVivo and can't wait to post some exciting findings next week when I am back home. SPSS has helped to to think about how girls and boys think about writing and it will hopefully also show me whether the film literacy scheme has actually made a difference to attitudes and attainment at the end of the year. Fingers crossed something useful is going to emerge!
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