Although I passed my values and working together modules in semester one, I did struggle with my elective module; Politics and Public Policy. From the beginning I knew this wasn’t going to be a strong point of mines however, did not realize to what extent I would struggle with the Political essays. I failed my first essay, mainly due to the referencing, however, my content was not the strongest either. To develop my understanding of where I went wrong I met with my marker to get constructive feedback in more depth. In reflection, the mistakes I made were very small issues and could have been avoided if I had took more time to read up on Harvard referencing. However, the content was lacking due to my confusion on the topic in general. For my second political essay and my first essay for teaching, the values module in particular, I made it a goal of mine to completely understand Harvard referencing. This was done through Cite them right and mainly discussions with other students on how they understood and got to grips with the concept. For the content, I made sure to pick a question that I had a clear plan for, one which I had some background knowledge on.

In my values essay I felt a lot more comfortable with the content and reading as it was a genuine interest of mine.  I also have my mum who is an Early Years Practioner who helped me develop the appropriate language I wanted to use. Although she works in a nursery and not a school, the same concepts can be used, for example GIRFEC and the SHANARRI wheel. Therefore, I did have more confidence in constructing and writing my values essay and in reflection I am very happy with my result.