Britains Got Talent Audition

A group of us decided to try our luck singing at this year’s Britain's Got Talent auditions in Cardiff! 

We all met when we started at Norland in September and share our student house in Bath. We decided we would sing would be Sing – the song Gary Barlow wrote to celebrate the Queens diamond Jubilee. We know it quite well as this is one we have been rehearsing with Grenville Jones in the Norland College Choir.

On Saturday we travelled to Cardiff and had such a good day, it was so exciting and great meeting so many people who were interested in our uniforms, asking us questions. 

We also made friends with the Llantarnam Deaf Choir (see the photo below) – our sign language skills came in really handy here.

We think it went pretty well and now have to wait until January to find out if we got through so fingers crossed everyone!

http://instagram.com/p/R2Hq7kxWVI/ 

Home Economics

Our latest creations in Home Economics:

Now you can see why this is one of our favourite lectures!

Apple Cake by Rosie

Pizza by Rosie

Rock (or rocket) cakes by Keziah

For more about the other elements of the Norland Diploma have a look here

Japanese Students Visit

Thursday 4 October 

Today students studying childcare at Seitoku University in Japan visited the college for a day of cultural exchange and to find out a little bit about childcare training at Norland.  

Before they arrived we were all a little nervous about what to expect - although the second year students had re-assured us it was a fun day.

We set up activities throughout the college that groups of the Japanese students would rotate around. Each activity is something we would do with children – mainly messy activities including shaving foam play, corn flour (or gloop), marble paintings and sand play. The students seemed to really enjoy getting stuck in and hadn’t really done any of the activities before.

All of the students were really enthusiastic and translated our names into Japanese for us and told us what the sounds of our names mean in Japanese.

Part of the visit included a cultural exchange where we performed We’re going on a bear hunt for the Japanese Students – with actions and everything! It was a lot of fun and they really enjoyed it. Here is a video of our performance. 

In return they performed the Japanese version of It’s a Small World; sang a song that they sing when they graduate - which was really good and performed a dance.

The day was really good fun, all the Japanese students were lovely and so enthusiastic about everything we were showing them. They took hundreds of photos and were really sad to leave. 

First week of lectures - academic and practical

It seemed like ages since we were in college when we arrived on Monday but it was really nice to all be together again as a Set. 2 weeks in placement meant we had a lot to catch up on with each other. We jumped straight into lectures on Monday morning, the modules we are doing this term are Child Development and Early Years Principles, policies and Practice. The prospect of the assignments we have to do on this subject is a bit daunting but we are actually quite excited to make a start.

This week was also the first week of all of our practical sessions. These are Home Economics, Creative Skills and Practical Skills.

Home Economics is taught at a local school called St Marks, about a 10 minute walk from the college. We spent a whole afternoon there and got an introduction to the space and what we will be covering in these sessions. Then we got to cook a crumble! Some of us were unsure as to how we would get on with Home Economics but after tasting our first ever crumble we have a feeling this is going to become one of our favourite lessons at Norland. 

(Photo of Lydia and Jo's crumble, before and after taste test! YUM)

Creative Skills was also a bit daunting, some of us have never sewn a thing while others seemed to be pros. But we all started at the basic hand sewing techniques and will be working up to using a sewing machine, phew. We are now getting quite excited about all of the things we will get to make.

Practical skills again was mainly an introduction session – this subject seems to cover so much! We'll learn about everything from basic hygiene, changing nappies, bathing babies and feeding, to travelling with children, managing behaviour and health and safety. 

It is going to be really interesting and helpful.