The morning accelerated off with our children acting as mechanics designing and building their very own motor buggy! This is always a stimulating session as it encourages creative thinking and team work; whilst enhancing Mathematical and Design skills. We soon had buggies drifting and spinning over the table tops, finally reaching a successful 360degree turn. Following this, children explored with the designs, positioning, and angles of their motor buggies to complete tasks of parking onto an A3 sheet of paper, and eventually attempting the challenge of parking into our Saints garage. Trial and error influenced their estimations and their excitement! The children immediatly got stuck into this activity and were eager and persistent, which paid off! Some great buggies were built which made a fantastic Grand Prix! The winners of the Grand Prix were Ellie and Lucy. Well done!!

The results of the “Saints New Kit” design were announced – a picture of the winning design by Patrick is shown below. Excellent design Patrick!

The rest of the day involved the children in developing practical skills in tag rugby! Fine motor skills are refined, along with tactical ideas and team work. Concluding another great day is Photostory; where children combine numerous photos and edit them with some fantastic effects, along with voice narration and sound effects! Something that they can go home and back to school with to show others the super activities they have taken part in over the summer!  

Unfortunately, this is my final day this summer at the Study Centre as tomorrow I am at school setting up my classroom! I begin my first teaching position this coming September, where I look forward to teaching Year 2 at Duston Eldean Primary School! However,  Pete and the team cannot get rid of me that easily as I will be coming to help out during the holidays and on match days. The Saints Study Centre has truly been an incredible experience! It encourages school children to enjoy learning and refining existing skills and developing new ones through exciting and creative activities. Another reason  why it is so successful is that it is run by a fantastic  group of staff who put their  hearts into their work and obviously enjoy their jobs so much and it is something they are obviously passionate about. The  staff are extremely friendly, supportive and work hard running the great sessions. The children always have someone there to help and guide them.

Study Centres are a fantastic asset for schools in Northamptonshire and it something I will encourage  schools to use throughout my teaching profession. A big Thank – You to everyone!   Hannah Pye (NQT)

I’m Tim Campkin. I have been working in the study centre over the summer on my break from University and have assisted Pete and the rest of the team in helping deliver the different sessions for the children. Aswell as delivering acivities we have ensured that children have had lots of fun and maximised their skills to an optimum level with a smile on their face.

One of my main duties has been to plan and deliver practical activities. These mainly being Tag Rugby and Kwik Cricket. Yesterday children took part in two Tag Rugby based activities which helped to build individuals’ ball skills, agility,  co-ordination, speed, reaction time and many other fundemental motor skills. Activities were very competitive and children were seen diving and running around everywhere in order to succeed.

Tuesday also consisted of a Healthy eating session and Stadium Tour. Hannah and Zoe led the stadium tour and shared their depth of knowledge of the Saints and Franklin’s Gardens with the children. Young Learners were priveledged to visit many parts of the stadium whilst filling in an activity sheet. Places visited included trophy cabinets, changing rooms, physio rooms and running out of the tunnel illustrated in the video above. Prizes were given for the top score for the stadium quiz.

Zoe’s Healthy eating session helped to develop childrens’ understanding on what not to eat and what is good to eat. Fruit was a main subject in helping to explain what things could be done to fruit to make it a tasty nourishing alternative to unhealthy foods. This ended in each child making a smoothie with different fruits of their choice. 

Overall, a great day and fantastic summer all round for both learners and staff. Even I have learned things this summer that will help me to enhance my University skills in my final year!

Today we started our new week with paper folding in maths which was fun. I have learned to not just leave everything to one person, you should all work together  as a team to complete the tasks. When we made our shapes we helped each other and sometimes we would use the tenplates Sarah has shown us to help us  fold the paper into different shapes. The shapes we made were; pentagon, rhombus, equilateral triangles and many more. We then used our knowledge to create a collage of the different shapes.

After lunch we had another fun filled session – this time it was Circus Skills. We learnt how to spin a plate and diablo, turn a poi, walk on stilts, juggle with clubs, balls and scarves and balance on the roller ball. At the end os the session we had to perform our best skills.

We then went back to the study centre and created a postcard of our first day using powerpoint. We had to insert four photographs, change the background colour, insert a title with wordart, changing colours as we wished and finally inserting a text box where we put our names.

Can’t wait till tomorrow-stadium tour-tag rugby sessions and healthy eating with all that fruit!!!!

Amy Nicholson delivered another fantastic “Puppet Making” workshop to our fantastic group of children from Bridgewater Primary School. The session began with an introduction to lots of Amy’s favourite puppets – followed by the children designing their own puppets, giving it a name and describing its character to the rest of the group.

It was then down to making their very own puppet from a variety of materials. The finished articles were fantatstic! The session ended with the children introducing their puppets to the rest of the group using some unusual speaking skills in our very own “Muppet Show” !!

Here is what the children have thought about their week and what they have learnt as a result of their experience at the Saints Study Centre.

” I can make puppets and create a photostory. I am much better at ICT and am much better at playing rugby now!” says Naomi.

” It has been amazing because I now know how to play rugby and I loved it. It was an allround great few days!” says Charlie. ” I also learnt how to insert photos into a presentation”.

Isaac writes,” I am more confident with ICT and can do lots more things on the computer”.

Matt was very pleased with his week, ” I can make lots of maths shapes out of paper and can change picture shapes in ICT and I really enjopyed the Tag Rugby sessions!”

Millie explains, ” I couldn’t play tag rugby before-now I can-I learnt new ICT skills and learnt lots of new maths shapes. I also liked puppet making because you got to make puppets and have lots of fun with your friends!”

Finally Thomas explains, “Its really fun and interesting with loads of exciting things to do. I loved making a robolab buggy!”

Today we started off by doing Robo Lab. We had to build our own buggy using lego with a partner then programme it to do a 360 degree turn.  After that we had to make our buggy park onto an A3 piece of paper and then park it into a mini garage without hitting the side of the walls or the back. We were the first to park it onto the paper and in the garage! We then had a grand prix on the car park and we raced our buggys but some of them broke!

After lunch we learnt new ICT skills using Photo story. We uploaded photos of us doing all the activities we have experienced during the week, changed the effects of the photos, cropped the images, inserted transition and duration, added commentary and background music.

In the afternoon we played tag and touch rugby. We also practised our passing, catching and kicking skills.

We had a great day!

Following this, the children were eager to get out onto the training pitch and practise their own rugby skills with a tag rugby session. The group practised their defending and attacking where they developed tactical skills. Children were energetically sprinting, dodging and turning. Passing skills were also refined as children were encouraged to work as a team passing the ball to one another as quickly, yet effectively, as possible. Finally, children had the opportunity to demonstrate these skills in a tag rugby game. There were lots of cheers and shouts on the pitch, showing great teamwork and communication!

After a well earned lunch break, a healthy eating session followed. This session had the children’s mouth watering as they could taste a wide range of fresh fruit. The group learnt new facts about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and diet, and got an insight into the diets of professional rugby players. After an interesting discussion about the food groups they then had the exciting challenge of designing their own smoothie! Children selected fruit that they liked and blended it with orange juice to make a delicious smoothie … well, some combiniations were good, but others not so tasty !

Finally, the day concluded with another practical session. This time the included a Kick, Pass, Run Challenge. This encorporates a range of skills acquired from previous sessions. Children moved around 3 stations where they perform kick, pass and run activities and their attempts were recorded. This activity enables children to develop their own personal performance. Their score is totalled up and certificates are awarded at the end of the week!

Well done children for a super day and for all your energy given in the practical sessions! Tomorrow is another fun day with Robolab; Photostory and another rugby special.