This week saw the culmination of all our young people’s hard work and the end of PFS for the Summer. On Tuesday Headlands children  hosted their Celebration evening with family, friends and representatives from school attending. The Headlands children won the inter-school competition and were all awarded with our special edition Rubix cubes.

Yesterday was the turn of Barry Road and Cedar Road Primaries who had a joint Celebration Evening. Over 60 people attended along with our young voluntary mentors to see the children receive their medals and certificates. It was a great evening and parents/carers had a chance to look around the centre and see the childrens work.

We have just heard from the East Midlands Development Agency that Northamptonshire Study Centres have received the Inspire Mark for Olympics themed Study Centre projects. This was a joint effort with our colleagues in extended services.

Please visit our Studycentres 2012 site for more information:

http://olympics.northantsstudycentres.org/

Steelbacks Study Centre in partnership with UFA, Daventry District Council staff and secondary school pastoral staff will be hosting the Olympic Summer Challenge this summer.

The summer challenge will serve as a bridge for the 30 year 6 vulnerable pupils participating in a transition project in the summer and autumn terms based at Daventry’s two secondary schools.

These pupils come from The Grange, Southbrook, Ashby Fields and Falconers Hill Primary schools.

For further information and to keep up with the challenge and anything Olympian go to:

http://olympics.northantsstudycentres.org/

We are now a Northamptonshire Childrens University Learning Destination! Ourselves along with the other 4 study centres in the county are now offering accredited sessions and schemes of work for Children’s University.

The Children’s University is a national organisation that provides 7 to 14 year olds with exciting and innovative learning activities and experiences outside normal school hours. They celebrate achievement and reward participation through our certificates.

Children are encouraged to progress through the national certification scheme, based on their number of hours of attendance throughout their involvement with the Children’s University. Initially, they will aim to gain a Bronze certificate, awarded for 30 hours of attendance. Thereafter, a Silver is awarded for achieving 65 hours of attendance, and a Gold for 100 hours of attendance.

For more information about Children’s Universities follow the link on the Blogroll.

On Friday we hosted an animation morning with 25 students from Rectory Farm Primary School (Year 5) and some over 50’s. This was our first venture with ‘School Of Life’ a project organised through Northamptonshire Volunteering Centre.

After a warm up game of Bingo, we then gave a short demonstration to our returners on the I Can Animate software so that they were able to show the adults how to use the software. In six groups of two’s and three’s, with an adult or two to help they made a character called Steeler, storyboarded their ideas and then made a short animation.New students to the centre had a chance to learn about cricket equipment and it’s safety features.

After a break for lunch we then held a ‘film’ show for all to watch.

Northamptonshire has been selected as one of only 12 out of 140 local authorities selected to take part in a pilot project to encourage younger and older generations to work together.

The aim is to promote and encourage better understanding between the generations by providing opportunities for people aged 25 and under and people aged 50 and over, to learn skills from one another or to work together on common projects.

For more information follow the link:

http://www.northampton-volunteers.org.uk/aboutus/index.aspx?id=2642

This ‘term’ we welcome the following schools:

Headlands Primary

Barry Road Primary

Cedar Road Primary

This week we will be a ‘getting to know you ‘ session with name badges and totem poles. Look out for pictures at the end of the week!

The Steelbacks successfully presented their bid for QiSS at emerged level at Crystal Palace on Friday 14th May 2010. Yvonne Tervit, Centre Manager, said “ The scrutineer’s said we had a very strong portfolio and they were particularly impressed by how we integrate the young people into everything we do in the Centre, giving them a true voice in how the service is delivered and our ethos. Many thanks to everyone who has supported us through the process, it’s all been worthwhile and now it’s onto established we go!!”

For more information on QiSS click on the link:

http://www.qissnationaldatabase.org.uk/

Last week we hosted a reward day for Year 5 pupils from Eastfield Primary School. The day was the prize for pupils winning the inter team competition from the Autumn Term. Thirty pupils, including fourteen returnees, and two members of staff came for the day. After a short introduction to the centre they were sent out in pairs to take photographs that could be used in an advert for playing or watching cricket. Luckily the first teams representing Northants and Derby were out on the field doing their warm ups before the final day of a 4 day match.

Pupils also had the opportunity to interview David Wigley, who is currently out of action with an injury, on his career, thoughts about cricket and how he got into it. Lunchtime gave the students the chance to watch some of the game. Armed with all the information gathered throughout the morning, they made a poster about cricket using Comic Life. Finally they had two hours of cricket coaching and games in the indoor school with one of the club’s community coaches. A great day!

Six members of the Northants Study Centres’ Olympic task group visited the Olympic Park in Stratford on Friday 23rd April. They were shown around by staff from Newham’s study centres and specifically the PfS Legacy Centre based at Abbey Road Children’s Centre. This is a stone’s throw from the park itself and after chatting to PfS staff we went to the building site that will eventually become the amazing Olympic Park in 2012. To find out more about the Legacy Centre, visit:

http://www.playingforsuccessonline.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx

We visited the ‘View Tube’, ( http://www.theviewtube.co.uk/ ) an eco-friendly classroom (made from shipping containers!) were we heard how students can visit to learn about the geography and history of the site out the window. The Greenway is a path and cycle route (based on an old sewer system!) that runs from here all through the park that will link up all the arenas and after 2012 there will be a lot of open space and parkland.

We then took the Dockland Light Railway to the other end of the park and visited the official viewing tower that overlooks the enormous site. Jean from Newham Council talked us through all the landmarks and arenas providing us with plenty of facts and figures. They are really starting to take shape now, the aquatic centre, vellodrome and main athletics arena are almost half way finished. In the distance the Excel centre could be seen, where martial arts, handball and boxing will take place. The O2 arena is not far where gymnastics will happen.

The huge site also has the largest shopping centre in Europe being built, along with the Stratford international train station. Soon it will take visitors 7 minutes to get from overland stations such as St Pancras to the Olympic Park and only a few minutes to London’s centre. These famous landmarks could be seem in the distance.

The athletes’ village is a series of high-rise apartment blocks, which will become residential housing after the games. There is obviously a great deal of thought and planning gone into the legacy of the 2012 games as every arena and patch of space is accounted for with future plans. This will create sustainability and regeneration in Stratford, bringing business to the area.

Jean showed us the projected plans what the site would look like as well as the individual arenas. The whole day was very interesting and we came back certainly inspired to run our own Olympic programme as well as more excited that the games are coming! We hope to be able to take children to visit the site at various points in its development and redevelopment after 2012.

Thanks to the Newham PfS Centres staff for being such great and informative hosts!

For the next ten weeks we are hosting a small group of Year 9 looked after children as part of the county Kicin2study programme. We will be ‘visiting the top ten cricketing nations of the world, looking at their culture, food, cricket and the arts.

So far they have ‘been to’ England here at the cricket ground and learnt about the tradition of English tea and this week Sri Lanka where they made some fantastic examples of Batik work using symbols from the country and had a chance to taste some exotic fruit from the country.

For pictures and more information click on the link below:

http://kicin2study.northantsstudycentres.org/2010/04/26/year-9-at-the-steelbacks-study-centre/