WORK HAS BEGUN ON THE STUDY CENTRE’S NEW ACCOMMODATION AT THE COUNTY GROUND.

AT THE MOMENT WE ARE HOUSED IN TWO ADJOINING ROOMS IN THE SPENCER PAVILION WITH PANORAMIC VIEWS OF THE FIELD OF PLAY. DESPITE THE EXCELLENT POSITION THE ROOMS HAVE BECOME TOO SMALL NOW THAT WE ARE OFFERING FULL TIME PFS PROVISION.BY THE SUMMER WE WILL BE MOVING TO THE OLD BOWLS CLUB ON THE ABINGTON ROAD SIDE OF THE GROUND.

IN THE NEW BUILDING WE WILL HAVE TWO DISTINCT TEACHING SPACES AS WELL AS A DESIGNATED OFFICE SPACE AND A BREAKOUT ROOM FOR GAMES AND BREAK TIME.

THE BUILDERS MOVED INTO SITE AT THE BEGINNING OF OCTOBER AND THINGS ARE MOVING QUICKLY WITH THE INTERNAL CEILINGS AND THE OLD OUTSIDE TOILETS ALREADY DEMOLISHED, AND WORK ON THE NEW EXTENSION UNDERWAY.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS TO SEE HOW IT IS LOOKING AND COME BACK FOR REGULAR UPDATES AND NEWS OF OUR LAUNCH IN THE COMING MONTHS. 

On Thursday 8th November, year 8 students from Weston Favell’s Double Club project visited the club with their teacher Mr Lucas. They undertook a stadium tour and saw behind the scenes of the indoor arena, club shop, changing rooms, bar, function rooms, committee room and went onto the life member’s balcony to get the best view of the pitch. Mr Lucas knew a lot about the club and was able to share his ‘pearls of wisdom’ with the children and hopefully convert them into cricket fans!

They then used the digital photos taken on the tour to create comic strips using the Study Centre’s apple laptops ‘comiclife’ programme. They did a great job and were very creative adding commentary, captions and speech. Afterwards they recorded some work done at school onto ‘garageband’ , a voice recording programme.

The students were a credit to their school and study centre staff found them polite, well mannered and well behaved. They showed enthusiasm for their work and asked intelligent questions about the club and its players.

This is what the thought about the visit/what they learnt and did:

Lewis: “It was good today because I used the garageband/music programme.”

Barry “The players have their own changing room.”

Amber “I created a comic strip about my day here.”

Colm “It was good as we saw where the cricket players train.”

Sophie “It was fun because we used the laptops.”

Dominique “I thought it was fun walking around, learning about cricket”

Simeon “I liked standing on the balcony as its a long way down.”

Mr Lucas “It was good to see the children very interested in cricket, they worked very well in the centre.”

Myra (mentor) “They worked extremely well”

Writing sports poetry and talking about sports photos’ action in the style of comentators.

This is what children, parents and school teachers thought about the session held on Parklands’ open evening:

Tiegan: “I thought it was fun interviewing the adults and writing sports poems”

George: “It was fun, I wish I could listen to more music”

Harriet: “It was difficult because my mum doesn’t know anything about sport”

Josh: “My mum was good at helping because she did it all”

Alex: “I had fun working with my mum and interviewing her, she was helpful”

Kieran: “Working with my dad was funny, he made me laugh with weird things”

Tiegan: “We learnt how to record our voices”

Harry: “We learnt how to insert music to go with our voices”

Mr Dicken says “The children are very lucky to have an opportunity to come and use this equipment”

Alexs mum: “I enjoyed today seeing what Alex was learning”

Keiran’s dad: “I found it interesting but Kieran is hard to work with, he was good at commentating”

Jack’s mum: “It was really intersting to see what they do out of school, and glad to see the children are so well behaved out of school”

Mrs Gedney: “I can already tell that their attendance at the sessions are having an impact back in school, they are more confident”

On Monday 5th November, parents and school staff were invited to come to the study centre for an open evening. They could see the children at work, look around the centre, see the cricket club and take part in the educational activities.

The brief was to write sports poetry using the 5 senses, from the perspective of a player, coach, ball, manager, commentator and so on and describe what you can see, hear feel…. There were some great poems and the children used their voices to act as commentators, discussing speed, tone, content. These were read out and recorded onto the apple laptops using ‘garageband’ and turned into podcasts by adding music and sound effects to suit the poem.

Afterwards, children worked with their parents to describe sports action taking place in photos of rugby, football and cricket. They discussed what was going on using adjectives and sports terminology. Then they had to imagine what had happened before the photo was taken and what would happen after. These disucssions were recorded onto garageband in the form of a sports interview about the photo and game.

This is what the children thought about their ‘family learning’ experience:

Alfie says we have been recording our voices, talking about sports. It was quite hard because to think of things to say

Oliver says Today was fun recording our voices and quite funny accidentally recording something else…..

Marc’s mum kept laughing

Emilia’s Mum didn’t know what she was doing

Sophie’s mum was very good at asking questions

Anna’s Dad was told what to do by her

Headteacher Kay Garett: “It is wonderful to see the children so involved and given so many different opportunities to use exciting technology in a different environment. Our pupils’ confidence in their own abilities is already showing. Thanks to all at the Steelbacks for their hard work and enthusiasm. I cant wait to see the new centre when it is finished.”

Robolab: control technology: working in groups to design and build robo cars/buggies and control them using ‘mindstorm education’ software. Experimenting with speed, direction, power and design. 3 challenges.

Everyone succeeded in the challenges and worked well together and with the mentors. Control technology is a different learning style, less academic and more logical. All children were engaged and excited by this activity and the sense of achievement on their faces said it all.

Parklands say:
It was fun and we got to know about teamwork: Josh

Me and Ty worked well together, but our robot was a bit rubbish as it went in circles: Kieran

I had a fun time doing Robolab: Alex

I had fun, it teaches you how to do teamwork: Tiegan

It was fun working with Ella and George as they helped you when we got stuck and they didn’t moan at me: Ellie

I liked Robolab as we shared ideas and it was really good: Sydney

Bibin (mentor) says the children were excited about the parking garage. They all learned through mistakes.

Myra (senior mentor) says she was amazed the children picked it up so quickly.

Anna says Parklands worked well together and acheived everything they set out to.

Cedar Road Stadium Tour reflections:

George learnt the playing field is oval

Ella learnt the stadium is 101 years old

Ty learnt 6500 people can fit in the stadium

Ellie thought the session was very interesting and fun because we got to use cameras

Harry thought the session was fantastic because I liked the pictures

Lucas said he thought the tour was wicked, when we went into the locker room

Alex really enjoyed iweb because I liked getting pictures

WEEK 3

The children used their digital photos and described them using as many good adjectives as they could think of. They also took part in some teamwork initiative games. Hoop passing, drainpipe racing and group juggling. This proved how good Cedar Road and Parklands are at working together.

Parklands worked on a cricket world cup geography project, researching cricketing countries and their population, currency, religion, squad members and so on. They used atlas’ and the internet, honing their research skills.

Shannon says “The tour was fantastic because we got to see all the cricket stuff and where everyone sits, clothes worn.”

Conor says “Wicked tour, I like stadiums.”

Marc thinks “The study centre is fun, you get to do more things with friends you never play with.”

Emelia says “You can get closer to friends because you can play/work/talk more here”

Sophie “The best thing about coming to the centre is that you learn more”

Frankie “I like learning how to use the laptops”

Alfie “You get to miss a bit of school, the centre makes it more fun to learn”

Aidan “It was really fun making badges, I had lots of fun experimenting on the computer”

Lee thinks “It is fun coming here because we get to learn about the club’s history.”

Jo, mentor thinks “Cedar Road are a lovely lively bunch of monkeys. I think they are smart people, they try very hard with every task they given.”

Parklands PfS group explored the stadium on Wednesday 3rd October. Here are some of the things they were interested to learn:

that the club is 101 years old

6500 people can watch a game

Monty Panesar is the most famnous player for Steelbacks at the moment

Alan Lamb was a famous player in the past

many of the rooms are used for meetings and hired out by the club

the committee room is where the life members sit to watch games

the rectangular area in the middle of the pitch is called the crease, the batting and bowling happens here

Afterwards the children used these facts for some ICT work

On Monday 1st October, year 5 students from Cedar Road Primary school took a tour round the Northants County Cricket Stadium. They took lots of digital photos and learnt about the club, its history and players. They went behind the scenes of the committee room, sat in the stands, saw the changing rooms, club shop, supporters club and scoreboards.

Once back in the Steelbacks Study Centre, pupils used iweb (apple programme) to record their tour and comment on the photos they took. They had also completed a quiz about the stadium.

Kieran says “The session was very good because it was fun.”

Alex says “I liked the maths challenge, it was very good, my team was good as they were working together nicely.”

Harry says “My fave part was making the stumps and bales.”

Sydney says “I liked the maths challenge as both teams worked hard and together.”

Josh “Today was very fun, we all got to know each other.”

Myra thinks: I was amazed at how quickly the children have picked things up. they work well together.”

Anna thinks Parklands are a lovely group who always try their best and know how to work as a team.