Week 8: Assignments and Arts

Last week held our patriotic day – St Patrick’s day! To celebrate this we decided to go to St Julian’s were there are a number of Irish bars. They were certainly making the most of the day with massive crowds outside each pub! It felt like the whole Irish population of Malta gathered here as I haven’t heard so many Irish accents in a long time, however there was also lots of Maltese celebrating along with us too despite it not being a public holiday!

Group photo!

Celebrating St Patrick's day

We have had a lot of free time this past week so decided to make the most of it by making a start on our assignments. In our module called Psychosocial Issues and their Implications for Early Years Development, we focus on 4 specific areas that are increasingly occurring and affecting children who are primary school age. The assignment for the module involves answering a question for each topic. Having received all the lectures for the divorce topic I chose to make a start on it. This is a worthwhile subject to be studying as NISRA (2013) report that over half of all couples who divorced had at least one child under the age of 18, meaning that just over 4,100 children/stepchildren were affected by the 2,403 divorces finalised in Northern Ireland in 2013. This shows the need for teachers to know what these children will be going through, how it will affect them and how they can provide an environment in which children can feel comfortable to discuss difficulties they are going through and where they can continue to learn.

Day trip to Marcasala

Treating ourselves to breakfast- just missing
some potato bread and soda bread!

In another module called Children in Society we were given some possible essay titles to think about over the Easter Holidays. There are only 8 people in this class, 4 Maltese students and 4 international students and so the lecturer is encouraging us to partner up with a Maltese student and together joint write our assignment.  I think this is a great idea as it will mean we can gain a greater insight into a Maltese prospective on a particular topic and compare it to another countries prospective, in my case Northern Ireland. However having only ever planned and delivered a presentation with another person or group of people before I am not quite sure how co-writing an essay will work, nevertheless I am excited for this opportunity to work with a Maltese student and to gain their help on the APA referencing system they use as it is different to the Harvard Referencing set up we use at Stranmillis.

My purchase at a craft fair in Valletta-
tasted as good as it looked!

Taking some time to chill out at the beach

Having always wanted to learn how to play the guitar, recently I bought a ukulele to get me one step closer to that dream as it is much smaller than a guitar meaning there are less strings to play on it and so is easier to learn how to play, whilst also being small enough to fit in my luggage home, therefore a dual purpose. I have really enjoyed being able to learn how to play different songs on it and have picked up the major notes in songs quite easily and hope it will give me good practice for when I eventually get a guitar.

My ukulele

Out for dinner with some friends