Maths was the order of the day at the Study Centre today. Sarah Mason, an AST from Sir Christopher Hatton School delivered a fun maths session for the Year 7 students from Thomas Becket RC School as part of their Transition Programme.

Here is what the students thought about the workshop;

Sean said, ” This is the most fun Maths lesson I have ever had! ”

Keesha said, ” We did really well at solving the puzzles, we were amazing! ”

Olivia said,  ” It was really fun and intersting, much better than Maths at school. ”

Jakub said, ” It was quite interesting but very challenging. I enjoyed it. ”

Maciek said, ” It was fun and really challenging, I enjoyed the colour codes game the most. Our team name was Myler.”

Over the last two days, a group of 26 Year 7 students from the Duston School have come to the study centre. Also in attendance were 12 Barclaycard Mentors who have been able to make the last two days very enjoyable. We have sometimes wondered who is the most enthusiastic, the children or the Barclaycard staff!!!

On Day 1 (Wednesday) the children came in wondering what was in store for them.  Pictures were taken with Bernie and some very cool Name Badges were made. The Children and Barclaycard mentors were then split into two groups. The first group went with Jeanette and Jo on a stadium tour and the others went with Pete and Tim to do Robolab.

On the tour some famous faces were seen, Dylan Hartley fresh from his first England start on Saturday stopped and had a chat with the children as well as signing some autographs. The children and staff came back with huge smiles on their faces!

Meanwhile, back at the study centre,  the Robolab Lego Grand Prix was taking place with  some very fast buggies  storming across the car park.

Lunch was had and the sun came out just in time for some Team Games to commence. The young learners were split into four groups, each with one or two Barclaycard staff as team leaders. Games included, the ski walk in which young learners had to move a big pair of wooden skis between six of them, coordinating their movements as a team. The pipe challenge involved carrying a tennis ball between two plastic pipes to get it into a bucket.  The drain pipe game involved the group moving a tennis ball between two points linking their individual drainpipes to carry their ball towards a bucket.  Finally, the blindfold tube game, which was exactly the same as the plastic pipe  game only one of the pair had to wear a blindfold to make the activity harder. This also introduced an element of trust and dependance between each pair in order to complete the task.

The day was completed with the young learners completing the “Postcard Activity” on their day at the centre using Publisher. They inserted four pictures of their choice from their folders onto a publisher document, changed the colour of the background, inserted a title, wrote about each picture in a text box or used speech bubbles!! The team games gave a tremendous boost to everyone whilst working within their teams with everyone encouraging their team members to do their best.

Eleven students from Thomas Becket R.C. Secondary School began their Transition programme today. The students will be coming to the Saints Sudy Centre for five days over the next three weeks to improve their key skills in numeracy, literacy and ICT as well as learning new rugby skills delivered by the Club’s Community coach Blair Hartley.

Activities will include making a name badge, origami sports kits and completing maths puzzles on-line. This is  followed by a Maths workshop delivered by Sarah Mason, an AST teacher from Sir Christopher Hatton School, a Shakespeare workshop and a Circus skills workshop, both of which will act as a stimulus for literacy work. Finally, the group will be taken on a behind the scenes  stadium tour which will engage the youngsters in completing a literacy/ICT piece of work on their experiences.

The

National Recognition

A group of Year 3 boys from Hunsbury Park Primary School visited the Study Centre today (Jeanette’s birthday!!) and experienced a behind the scenes tour of Franklin’s Gardens. They learnt about the history of the Saints and visited the changing rooms, ran out the tunnel as if they were a Saints player and viewed all the trophies in the Sturtridge Pavillion.

On their return to the Study Centre an amazing array of cakes were sampled by the group to celebrate Jeanette’s 60th -  Oops sorry 50th birthday!! Jeanette says, “ Thanks for the card and prezzie boys!”

The boys answered a questionairre with their mentors whilst on the tour. Well done Zoe and Helena!!

Today began with designing and making smoothies, looking at the nutritional data to help create the best possible drink. Impressively, all but one were drinkable! The group then completed their Club Challenge producing some great presentations.

The conclusion to the course in the afternoon was a stadium tour. Not only were the group able to access areas not normally open to the public, they were also told some of the history of the club and had to answer relevant questions on mechanics! 

A fantastic three days, a pity it had to come to an end!

Today began with Team Games with Barclaycard. These involved logical thinking and communication processes a key area of Discrete Mathematics. Once again, each team was extremely competitive! This was followed by kicking practice which looked at angles of approach and how to get the biggest force when kicking the ball.

In the afternoon the group discussed healthy eating and had the time to try lots of fruit in preparation for designing a nutritional smoothie on day three. A great day which flew by too quickly!

“I really enjoyed the games in the morning, especially the speed stacking which improved my hand-eye coordination. And my egg won! I also enjoyed the kicking practice “- Jack

“I had great fun at the kicking practice, even though I didn’t get the rugby ball over the posts. Also, the team building exercises were lots of fun”  (Hema

“The range of activities is great and they are all really fun! I would definitely come again”  Georgia Gorham :

Callum Hodgson had a special treat during the day meeting his Saints lookalike in the shape of James Cannon-the tallest player in the Premiership at 6′ 8″!!!