What to do when you get your results!

1. SQA RESULTS – 4/5 AUGUST 2010
SQA results are due out on Wed 4 and Thurs 5 August. Hopefully, you will have met the conditions of your first choice university. If not, DO NOT PANIC! Once you contact us we can send your report to your 1st choice university and 2nd choice university, if required.

2. WHAT YOU NEED TO DO ON RESULTS DAY !
It is ESSENTIAL that you contact the LEAPS office on results day asap – 4 or 5 August. We only send Summer School reports to University Admissions Officers if they are required and we will NOT send them until you contact us and instruct us to do so.

There will be a huge number of students contacting us so please follow these guidelines;

a) Please PHONE US as soon as possible on the numbers below if you HAVE NOT MADE
your conditions & require us to send your report to your 1st/2nd choice universities.

b) Please EMAIL US as soon as possible if you HAVE MADE your conditions and
confirm what university you are going to and what course you’ll be studying.

3) LEAPS CONTACT DETAILS

Email: LEAPS@ed.ac.uk

Telephone: 0131 651 1341 OR 0131 650 4677 OR 0131 650 4692

Please DO NOT phone in on the main office no – only use the above numbers on 4/5 Aug.

4. Try and BE PATIENT if your Summer School report is sent to Admissions Officers for consideration. It is a very busy time for universities and they may take a few days to make a decision. Resist the temptation to contact universities yourself. Call LEAPS instead! In most cases Alison/Claire will be happy to call the universities on your behalf.

CHECK YOUR UCAS TRACKER REGULARLY - The university will inform you about whether you have a place by changing the status on your UCAS online tracker.

5. AND FINALLY………………

We are here to advise and support you in the weeks between now and when you start your course. However, as this is a very busy time for the LEAPS team please phone to make an appointment, if you need one, to ensure someone will be available to see you.

On behalf of the LEAPS team I wish you all the best for your exam results. We will have our fingers crossed for you!

Claire

LEAPS Summer School Graduation Photos

The photos are in from the photographer. If you see any photo that you would like to keep, all you have to do is the following:

- right click on the photo
- save picture as
- choose an appropriate place to save the photo onto your computer
- You can then have them printed at your local supermarket or photography shop.

If there are any photographs that you would like but they are not in full below, please email Jason at LEAPS: jason.bain@ed.ac.uk.

Thanks
LEAPS team

click on image to enlarge

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Staff vs. Student Football - The Result

LEAPS Challenge Cup: The Contenders

As of midnight last night, 6 teams had faxed in team lists to the Football Association offices ahead of this afternoon's Challenge Cup.

1. Denningston Academicals (Staff)

2. CS Estudiantes

3. Mariam Javed and co

4. Ellen Mason and co

5. Rebecca Middlemass and co

6. Luke Sneddon and co

The people on the sports desk at the Denningston Courier are currently working on player profiles and witty team names which will appear here in the course of the day.

James

What happens this Wednesday?

(click on image to enlarge)

This Wednesday, the final occasion that we will all gather together in class (note the you see the tear-stained text on this post) we'll be rounding off the Learning Skills course (morning) before looking to what will happen in the coming weeks (afternoon).

It's worth drawing attention to a number of sessions:

Student Panel: this will be a light-hearted session led by members of the Personal Tutor team where you'll have the opportunity to put questions about student life to our panel of experts. In case you don't feel like asking questions from the floor you'll be able to anonymously post your query in our question box which will be in the lecture theatre from the start of the day (although if you're planning to submit a smart or ironic question, please try and be humorous with it - asking whether a particular Personal Tutor is courting at the current time is about as original as it is funny). This is always a good session in helping you get an idea of the practical realities of starting university so don't miss it.

Sessions for students planning to study at Heriot-Watt, Napier or Stirling Universities: Another vital session if you're aiming for any of these seats of learning. Will include what to expect on your first days, student support and so on. These sessions will be delivered from some of our friends from these universities. Please note that the Stirling session will be at the end of the day, the Napier and Heriot-Watt sessions just after lunch.

Student photo: As Alison mentioned last week, it's a Summer School tradition that we take a photograph to capture our whole group before you embark on your different academic journeys. You'll be able to purchase a copy of the photograph after the end of Summer School as a lasting memento of all the cool people you've met these past weeks. You could even whack the image on a commemorative plate or at the bottom of an ashtray as you please. All good stuff.

So then, until Wednesday.

James

Forza Estudiantes! A new team enters the LEAPS Challenge Cup

Recent Visitors to the Leapstown Football Academy on Buccleuch Place will have noticed that the line up for the first of our student teams has been pinned to the slightly grafitti-tainted notice board. The team - Club Sportiva Estudiantes - take their name from the famous football team from Argentina and are hoping to play what team captain Greg Stockwell describes as, "attractive, educated football".

On paper this looks to be a nicely balanced side with a mixture of hard graft and flair. The team are expected to look to the Latin trickery of Roberto di Kenmure up front and the agility of Chris 'The Cat' Catto in goal.

If you think you can teach CS Estudiantes a football lesson, simply find 7 other players* and e-mail the names to me at james.lamb@ed.ac.uk. We're looking for an even number of bloke and lady players on each team.

James

*footballing talent optional

Learning Skills: blogs we can't see

'She's making a list,

She's checking it twice,

She's wants to find out whose blog's looking nice...'

OK, last chance for those of you who have yet to invite LEAPS Marker to view your Personal Blog, to do so. If you're on Lindsay's list below then she still CANNOT access your work:

Conner Stewart (PT Chantelle)

Bruce Halloran (PT Jennifer)

Laura Bunting (PT Keir)

Danielle Johnstone (PT Stefanie)

Zaira Yasman (PT Stefanie)

Connor Oldroyd (PT Vanda)

Michael Symonds (PT Vanda)

Jack Cree (PT Zubair)

Alaisdair Dippie (PT Zubair)

If in doubt, contact Lindsay (not me!) at lindsay.kelly@ed.ac.uk. I promise, this is the last thing I have to say on the matter!

James

Graduation Tickets

Dear all
Tommorow (16th) is the deadline to let me know your graduation intentions! We've just been on a site visit to the venue and its all looking pretty exciting so if you want to go, please email me by the end of busines (5pm) tommorow with the following details:
your name
how many guests you would need (within reason!)

My email address is alison.train@ed.ac.uk

We will allocate tickets on Monday and give them out on Wednesday so if you are late to request you might miss the boat! Graduation is on the 23rd July at 7pm (6.30pm arrival) till 10pm and will include the awards ceremony that you were all voting for on Wednesday with fabulous prizes! Its a nice way to end Summer School before we get into the nitty gritty or results time!

Let me know by the end of tommorow!
Thanks
Alison

Learning Skills: can we access your blog?

A number of you have been in touch to seek reassurance that the marking team can access your Personal Blog.

Here then this is a list (correct as of 10am this morning, Thursday 15 July) outlining all the blogs that the team are able to access (listed alpabetically by surname):

Hooray, the staff can see your blog!

If you are one of the few people NOT listed on this document (and are not otherwise in discussion with Lindsay Kelly) it is VITAL that you make contact with Lindsay immediately at lindsay.kelly@ed.ac.uk (you'll notice that this is the address for Lindsay, not for me). Lindsay will be ironing out any blog access issues tomorrow morning (Friday 16 July) therefore if you haven't been in contact by then you'll receive zero for this assignment.

Over to you then.

James

Learning Skills: Peer Assessment

The following students need to contact me at the earliest opportunity to complete the Peer Assessment Exercise:

Connor Oldroyd
Jack Cree
Alasdair Dippie
Connor Robb

James

james.lamb@ed.ac.uk

Learning Skills Personal Blogs

As promised, a list of students from whom Lindsay Kelly hasn't had an invitation to view their Personal Blog:

Ian Anderson
Louise Arnott
Laura Bunting
Fiona Choi
Jack Cree
Alaisdair Dippie
Ryan Fairbairn
Danielle Freeland
Affroza Haider
Bruce Halloran
Danielle Johnstone
Connor Oldroyd
Jordan Paterson
Cameron Paul
Suzanne Priestley
Amy Quinn
Marie Sambou
Stuart Smith
Shaunie Stevenson
Conner Stewart
Michael Symonds

If you are on this list we aren't necessarily assuming that you haven't created a blog - simply that we can't see your work. Either way, the result is the same - a score of zero unless you remedy the situation by the deadline.

I appreciate that you may have sent Lindsay an invite in the last 24 hours or that you may currently be in discussion with Lindsay - if so, then ignore the above message.

However if you are on the list, have set up a blog some time ago and are not currently in discussion with Lindsay then it's important that you make sure she can access your work. Marking of the Personal Blogs is going to commence at 09.30 this Thursday therefore if Lindsay cannot access your blog by this stage you will score zero for this assignment.

If you have any queries, e-mail lindsay.kelly@ed.ac.uk (not me, as I can't do anything about it!)

James

What happens this Wednesday?

Wednesday 14 July

09.00-09.15 Registration and Notices

09.15-09.20 Student Stories (postponed from last week)

09.20-09.30 Guidance on submission of project reports

10.00-11.00 Drop in project work clinic with James and Denny (optional)

12.00-12.15 Recipe for Success with Stef

14.00-15.00 Drop in project work clinic with James and Denny (optional)

15.30 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROJECT REPORTS TO YOUR PERSONAL TUTOR

15.30-15.45 Completion of Peer Assessment Exercise (in your tutorial room)

15.45-16.00 Notices

16.00-16.15 Mentoring session for prospective Edinburgh and QMU students

(all sessions take place in WRB G.08 unless indicated otherwise)

James

Mentoring session for prospective Edinburgh and QMU students

This Wednesday afternoon there were will be an invaluable session for students who are planning to study at either Edinburgh University or Queen Margaret University.

Neil Speirs (Edinburgh) and Jenni Murray (QM) will be visiting William Robertson Building at 4pm to provide information about student mentoring programmes and what to expect when you enrol at these universities in September.

Mentoring programmes are seen (and proven) to be a vital way of enabling new students to progress through the difficult early stages of university life and beyond. In its simplest form, mentoring involves being paired up with another undergraduate in later years of study who is doing well in their studies and is trained to offer guidance and support. A number of our Personal Tutors are mentors at their respective universities.

The commitment involved in being a mentor means that places are normally very restricted, however as a student on the LEAPS Summer School you can put your name down early by attending this session on Wednesday. All you need to do is stay around for approximately 15 minutes at the end of the day on Wednesday - from WRB, Neil and Jenni will lead you to adjacent venues. It's worth pointing out that, as well as providing you with the opportunity to find out about mentoring, you'll be able to put questions to our visitors - perhaps there's something you want to find out about matriculation or registration at your chosen uni?

So, a really useful session and a great opportunity that isn't on offer to all (i.e. non-Summer School) students. I've invited reps from Heriot-Watt and Napier to deliver an equivalent or similar session on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 July (week 7).

James

Message for Personal Tutor footballers

This post is for members of the Staff/Personal Tutor football team.

Following on from our training session and team get-together yesterday, I thought it would be useful to give you a copy of the strategy board we agreed on - basically, I took a photo of what we came up with (before my nephew took his Subbuteo pitch back).

Jason - you're going to be keeping things tight at the back as you know. This will give Lauren and Alice the freedom to overlap down the flanks.

Zubair and Jenn - you'll be playing box-to-box - covering our wingbacks when they go forward and then pushing up into the channels when you get a chance.

Keir is going to play the Iniesta role - picking up balls from midfield and feeding Stefforlan to put the thing in the onion sack.

As the oldest player in the tournament I'll be playing a 'sitting role' in the centre of the park. As the tactics board shows, I'll be doing lots of shouting and pointing but precious little running.

A final note - with just over a week until the tournament please remember that you're on a strict fish and pasta diet. Lots of carbs, fruit and water but no late nights. I don't want to pick up the Metro and see you leaving a night club in the company of a model or pop singer etc.

James

Peer Assessment

When you participate in assessed team work at university, peer assessment is often the device that's used to distribute marks between the different group members.

As you'll be participating in peer assessment this Wednesday afternoon (following the completion of your Learning Skills project) I thought it would be useful to give you an idea of how the process works in practice.

To this end, I've put together a short, basic, animated film. You'll find the film alongside the peer assessment form within the Study and assessment section of the course website.

As ever, get in touch via e-mail or the course discussion board if you have questions.

James

Referencing support

It's likely that you'll have a number of different Summer School assignment deadlines looming therefore I thought it would be useful to draw attention to some supplementary referencing information I've added to the Learning Skills course website.

Firstly, I've uploaded the film of the 'human reference' that we built in class on Wednesday. If nothing else, it shows that referencing can be simplified by breaking it down into different components.

Secondly, I've included a link to an online reference builder. Now, I'm not saying that this will be the answer to all your referencing problems (not least as different Summer School courses may look for an approach other than Harvard) however I wanted to make the point that there's a wealth of online referencing help out there.

Thirdly, I've added a supplementary referencing exercise to the site so that anyone who would like another go at exercises similar to those from Wednesday's tutorial, can do so.

You'll find all these resources on the Presenting Evidence section of the learningskillsplus.com site.

And of course, if you have any questions, leave a message for me on the discussion board.

James

Learning Skills - Project Report mark sheet

Following yesterday's Learning Skills classes, I've made a couple of tiny alterations to the Project Report mark sheet. This is really just offer a bit more clarity, for instance I've added more detail to the word count criteria to acknowledge that the 2500 words doesn't include your reference list.

Therefore please ignore the previous version and refer instead to this updated sheet.

Project Report mark sheet

As I suggested yesterday, once your report is nearing completion I think it's worth using the mark sheet as a check list to see whether you've covered the key areas.

As ever, if you have any questions put them on the course discussion board.

James

LEAPS film - do you want to take part?

LEAPS are helping to make a film about widening access to Higher Education.

I am looking for volunteers to talk about their experiences of LEAPS so far. You will be given prompts throughout, so don’t worry.

Questions will be about:
- Your thoughts/feelings on progressing onto Higher Education.
- How have LEAPS helped you?

The interview will take about 5 minutes and be on the day of graduation.

If you are interested in taking part, simply email jason.bain@ed.ac.uk

LEAPS Summer School Challenge Cup

The FIFA World Cup may be edging towards its conclusion this weekend, however the football-related excitement will continue with the LEAPS Challenge Cup on Wednesday 21 July (week 7). Put simply, our tournament will be just like with World Cup but won't be tainted by commercialism and will be mercifully free of terrace tourists wearing clown wigs who are more concerned about being seen on the big screens than watching the team the purport to follow.

Anyway, getting off my soap box for a moment, here's some basic information about the tournament:

Where and when: The tournament will take place in the Meadows Arena at approximately 4.30pm on Wednesday 21 July.

Teams: Each team should be made up of 4 males and 4 females. You can draw your team from across different tutorial groups as you desire, although your team should only be drawn from current Summer School students. There will be a combined staff and Personal Tutor team.

Registering your team: Teams should be registered by Tuesday 20 July. Simply e-mail at james.lamb@ed.ac.uk with the names of your players and I'll compile the fixture list.

Duration: Each game will last 20-minutes. The number of games each team plays will be determined by the number of participating teams.

The tournament is really just intended to be a bit of fun and will be played in a good spirit. Don't worry if you're not the best player - I've seen some of the staff team training and, rest assured, you'll be in good company.

Be sure to follow all the exciting build up to the tournament here etc...

James

Student Stories: Studying abroad

Last Wednesday, members of the Personal Tutor team delivered a short, upbeat presentation celebrating diversity at university. In the second of our 'Student Stories' tomorrow, Rosie and Vanda are going to share their experiences of spending some of their time at university studying at foreign universities.

09.20-09.30

Wednesday 7 July

William Robertson Building Lecture Theatre G.08

Limited Places on Laserquest - Wed 7 July

There are limited places left on Laserquest for this Wednesday 7th July from 5-6pm.

There are 40 places in total and it's proving popular so to guarantee your place please get £4.50 to me as soon as possible.

You can drop your cash into the LEAPS office from 9-5pm any week day or see Claire at Learning Skills on Wednesday.

Please be aware that final deadline for payment is 12noon on Wed 7th July. You will NOT be able to just show up at Laserquest and get a game. We need you to sign up first as places are tight.

The LEAPS team of staff and Personal Tutors will be hoping to build on previous victories, especially now that we have taught Roy how to old the gun the right way round!

The Laserquest we are going to is at 56 Dalry Road, EH11 2BA. It's just up from the big junction at Haymarket station. Follow a Personal Tutor or look the address up on Google maps for details of how to get there. It's right next to the British Heart Foundation's Furniture and Electrical shop.

Learning Skills Project Presentation marks

Well done to everyone who got up and spoke during yesterday's presentation assessment.

Next Wednesday (7 July) each team will be given a copy of the mark sheet completed by staff for their presentation. This will include an indication of how your presentation fared against each of the assessment criteria, as well as your final mark (out of 20).

In general, the standard of presentations was good. All teams met the pass mark, most comfortably, some (very) narrowly. The pass mark within the common university marking scale is 40%.

James

LASERQUEST - WEDNESDAY 7 JULY

LASERQUEST - Wednesday 7 July

Venue: Dalry Road, near Haymarket

Time: After classes

Cost: £5 to Claire at LEAPS HQ

Payment deadline: 12noon, Wed 7th July

Learning Skills - some tutorial room changes

After three months without cleaning, the tutor's coffee mug had developed its own culture.

A number of our Personal Tutors will be attending university graduation ceremonies tomorrow (Wednesday 30 June) and will therefore not be present for Learning Skills. This means that some project teams will join different groups for the morning tutorial as follows:

Kayleigh's GM project team will join Keir's Group in 22 Buccleuch Place room 2.2
Kayleigh's Social networking team will join Zubair's group in 22 Buccleuch Place room 1.4
Rosie's Advertising team will join Hannah's group in DHT 4.01
Vanda's Smoking team will join Linz's group in DHT 11.01
Rosie's GM team will join Nicola in DHT 8.16
Vanda's CCTV team will join Nicola in DHT 8.16

James

Student Stories: Celebrating diversity at university

We will begin tomorrow morning's session with the first in our series of Student Stories, the aim of which is to give you an idea of some of the positive experiences as well as the challenges of university life outside the classroom.

In the first session, our Personal Tutors Chantelle, Jay, Keir and Lynz (not pictured below) will discuss their experiences of diversity at university. The team have chosen the title 'Different Strokes' for their presentation, which will take place at 09.15 tomorrow, Wednesday 30 June, in William Robertson Building Lecture Theatre.

Should be good. We haven't done anything like this before at Summer School so I'm looking forward to it.

James

Some pics from Sumo !

Learning Skills - marking team

Each of this Wednesday's Learning Skills presentations will be assessed by two members of the staff team as follows:

Dr Mary Ho, The University of Edinburgh

Kendall Richards, Edinburgh Napier University

Marianne Sevachko, University of Glasgow

Dr Majella Sweeney, Queen Margaret University

...and of course, Denny and myself.

Each member of the marking team has a clear understanding of the Learning Skills course, having been involved in this exercise for at least the last five years (and in some cases, much longer). You will find each member of the team firm but fair. The same members of staff will be marking Project Reports in week 6 (two weeks away).

The marking 'pairings' will be agreed on Wednesday morning although as the staff team will meet directly before and after the presentations, rest assured that the standard of marking will be consistent between the different members of the team.

James

Learning Skills Presentation arrangements

Details of next Wednesday's Learning Skills Presentation arrangements can be found on the course website on the Study and assessment page.

Remember, if you have any questions about the presentation, post a message on the course discussion board.

James

Planet of Sound merchandise

I've had a few queries about Planet of Sound merchandise so thought it would be useful to post replies here:

You can buy badges (25p each or two for 50p*) and t-shirts (£7) by visiting the Planet of Sound Offi.....LEAPS Office at 7 Buccleuch Place.

We have 31 t-shirts left and, ooh, hundreds of badges.

T-shirts are available in S, M, L and XL.

James

*4 for a pound

Caledonia...ah, Learning Skills today

Thanks everyone for your enthusiastic input to today's Learning Skills sessions. I hope you found the different activities useful.

You might be interested to know that a further news clip has been added to Planet of Sound news page.

There were a number of good responses to the 'crazy fan invasion' of this morning's public meetings, however I've selected just one example in the news clip as I think that it offers a really good demonstration of a few of the themes we've covered in the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, I was impressed by the way that the interviewee from Gigantic Events took time to think about his responses, as we covered in this morning's lecture. I thought this which made for a very effective defence.

Secondly, look I was impressed by the interviewee's body language. As per this morning's lecture, he uses eye contact with the audience and engaging posture. His overall demeanour gave the impression that he was taking the crazy fan's viewpoint seriously.

Thirdly, the responses given were very calm, measured, rational and unemotional - picking up on a number of themes from this week's session.

Well done to the representative concerned and to everyone for making today a pleasant learning experience (for Denny and I at least!)

James