Starting the research

It's been quite some time since I have blogged- the summer flew by and now I am already half way through the first phase of my research. I started to contact schools in August and also met the teachers at the first teacher training event. Unfortunately it turned out that the classes were actually Year 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (instead of only Year 5), but on the other hand there are almost 30 schools who are part of the scheme this year. It has been challenging to get in touch with them and organise a day at school with the teachers but whenever I have met students it has been very interesting and rewarding. So far, 200 students have taken questionnaires on writing and film.

On a none-PhD note, I have joined a group of people who are trying to apply for a Steiner Free School in Leeds. Have a look at the website if you are interested :-)

I passed my transfer a few weeks ago, too, so there is one thing I can tick off! Hurray! Chapter-wise, I am now done with film, literacy and motivation and also hope to submit the section on emotion at the end of the week. Unfortunately I still haven't got a second supervisors but I have got my fingers crossed that the paperwork is finally going to come through before Christmas.

Last Saturday I attended the Media Education Association conference in London and spoke about the ways in which the scheme uses film to teach literacy. I only spoke to a small group of people, but I think that most of them found it interesting and helpful. One of the attendees turned out to be Paul Reeve, the new head of Film Nation UK. I had another quick chat with him at the end of the day and he told me to 'get on with my PhD quickly' as it was needed by the film education community and that it would be 'dynamite' once it was published. That was pretty great feedback from someone so important!

In three weeks time I am off to my first international conference the Media and Learning Conference in Brussels. You can find the programme here. It looks like a very interesting event and I look forward to sharing my research with the international film and media education community. I have also been accepted to speak at the Meccsa conference in Bournemouth in January and will be presenting a paper on how Bradford introduces film to people on the margins of society. 

Social Sciences conference at Sheffield Uni

This week was my last conference for the term: The Translation and Transformation conference at the Social Science department of the University of Sheffield. Although much smaller than Kaleidoscope, there were actually more people in my talk than last week. This time I spoke about film education and policy in the UK, which was great fun. It's so much easier speaking about things that you know something about rather than an uncertain lit review!

My favourite part of the conference was the interesting, divers topics and the open minded people who attended it. I learned about everything from violence to lapdancing and banter! When you work in education, ironically you sometimes forget that the world is there to be discovered! Hopefully I will reconnect with the people from the conference soon. I tweeted through most of the conference so have a look at my twitter stream if you are interested in what went on`

 On the topic of my lit review, I have now finished my first chapter. It looks at film education, film literacy and film as a tool and I am pretty proud of my first 11k words! My transfer is now not going to take place until October due to uni regulations and there should be lots of time over the summer to engage with methodology and methods.

University of Bradford Postgrad Group

This week, my City of Film journey has led me to a sign on a door:

A few months ago, I meet Michelle Sutton, the principal of Bradford College at a City of Film board meeting and, as a result, have been working for the college since February. We are currently in the throws of founding a new Film School and I am helping to coordinate marketing campaigns and to write the BA (Hons) Film degree course. At the same time I am also preparing the first chapter for me PhD and the structure of the methodology, so things are busy!

I have been feeling a bit isolated at the university and founded a postgrad club a few weeks ago. At the first meeting we had 26 people and people were really enthusiastic about meeting other PhD students. Two weeks ago at our second session, we were discussion lots of postgrad issues from vivas to publishing and I really enjoyed meeting other people from the uni!

On Saturday I visited the RATMA Student Film Festival at the Keighley campus of Leeds City College. I was really impressed by the effort that the students had put in. Films were screened almost every hour so people could catch what they liked almost all the time. Plus there was lots of fundraising for charities, free refreshments and a band. Pretty good for the first year! Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the award ceremony on Sunday but it the festival runs again next year, I would love to go.

On a related festival note: Last year around this time I was preparing for the FilmFest Munich with the other people of the team. I just found a picture of my desk:

At the festival centre we needed lots and lots of phone numbers really quickly and that was the one way to do it! Although I am kind of glad not to be involved in the stressful time this year, I also miss the excitement that festivals offer! I guess my PhD will have to take that role this year! :-)

Newspaper articles

This time I have got some really exciting news! Through my work at the Bradford Film School, a website and a newspaper wrote articles about me in the last days. You can find the piece in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus here and the article on 4rft here.

I also did lots of promotion on twitter on Friday, attending and speaking at the Leeds Uni Education Research Conference. My presentation went really well and I am looking forward to attending the next conference in Cambridge

After two conferences last week, I am hoping to finish my first chapter of the literature review in the next days. Fingers crossed everything will be ready for the transfer at the beginning of July!