Yesterday saw the launch of the charity Always a Chance’s 92 Club Relay at the Northampton Town Football Club.

The study centre was also involved and two of our young S2R reporters have been filming people starting the relay to go round 92 football stadiums for Always a Chance charity. The charity was set up in memory of James Kouzaris and James Cooper who  were tragically shot in Florida last year and their friends want to raise money to raise awareness about gun and knife crime.

The 92 Club Relay will see thousands of people take part in a relay to all 92 football league grounds in the country. Click on the links for more information about how you can get involved.

TV Anglia, BBC Look East and the Chronicle were there so that they could get a front page story to spread the word about the charity and its message. Some of the Cobblers youth team ran the first mile on their way towards Coventry. Andy Holt was also there, Jack filmed him being interviewed by Adam who asked him what the event was all about. Paul Diggin, Saints player was also there to lend his support to the campaign.Their task was to make a film covering footage of the start of the relay. Adam created a montage of the baton, banner and the youth team running out the stadium.

Once they have made their decisions and designed the various parts of their bid they will have to do a presentation which will be marked on content.

First we showed them a video flyover of the current London Olympic park to give them an idea of the scale and different buildings needed.

They soon go to work designing their parks and here are the results:

Both bids will be judged next week by Anna.

This week focuses on ‘Getting to know ourselves’. Once again using games, the group started to think about:

• themselves and others
• controlling their movements
• co-operation, focus and awareness
• starting to identify emotions

Our drama programme continued the work on communication, team work and cooperation through a number of games and activities.  The students also thought about the importance of focus and the dramatic skills needed to ensure an audience’s attention was focussed in the right direction.  The session continued with some initial mask work – looking at a range of masks, considering what emotion might be associated with the expressions on them, and thinking of  scenarios  which might represent particular emotions.

We observed some good work from those students who were willing to have a go at what they were asked to do and we considered the importance of cooperation and respect when working

At the end of each the session the young people will use Comic Life on the Macs to record their impressions.

Also as part of the Steelbacks Advanced Animation Club, the Study Centre will be running a 2 Day film Production Program during the  half term holiday on the 16th – 17th of February. Over the two days students will have the opportunity to work on longer more advanced film projects with support of Professional Film Makers for the Film Northants 2012 Film Festival. If you would like to take part of this project, please download the attached form by clicking on the link or contact the Steelbacks Study Centre through the website.

Steelbacks Flyer

Jonathan and Ben are making a Lego stop motion comic book

Emily and Nicole are making a comic book using still stop motion pictures

George is making an animation as are Michael & Oliver and Jake & Spencer

Comments on the session:

Adi “I liked being a caveman with the mallet.”

Beck “My flag is about the Olympics. I have put sports on it and 5 coloured rings to represent the 5 Olympic rings and continents.”

Adam “It was hard but the it got easier as the wind blew it down. I did a plan to make the shelter sloped so the water would run off.”

Jack “I worked in a team with Adam. I enjoyed climbing the trees.”

Mark “I thought they all worked well as a team. I participated and supported Jack.”

They worked in groups of three and had to plan out thier story first. The idea was to take stop motion action shots with normal cameras to tell the story. We talked about how expressions and body language needed to be clear and exaggerated to show what was happening.

Once the photos were taken and uploaded they set to work putting them into Comic Life in the correct order. After adding speech bubbles and colour they were ready to save. here is an example:

The article written by Lei Chan focussed on two of our local schools, Eastfield & Bridgewater, who are currently using this exciting method with their year 2′s. The Chronicle visited the schools to see how it was done in practice.

The centre has used the martial arts- style strategy in the past as part of a wide range of aids to improve literacy. In fact Eastfield Primary learnt to do it at our centre a few years ago. Lynn the centre co-ordinator was interviewed by Lei about the effectiveness of using this kind of strategy. To see the full article follow the link:

Kung Foo Punctuation

This week we saw the return of Connor from our previous Grendon Gateway group and the addition of Adam from the Cobblers Study Centre. They joined in well with the rest of the group to list athlete qualities, mental and physical. The students then applied these skills to messy/crazy ‘Oddball’ games. At the end of the session they chose which skills applied to Olympic athletes of all sports.

Reflection/evaluation comments:
Jack: Usain Bolt uses endurance and speed to win.
Beck: Mark Cavendish is willing to take risks. I liked the water sponge game, we used teamwork.
Connor: Im Dong (archer) uses focus and determination so he can be the best archer. I liked the jelly and straws game, I used speed and teamwork.
Adi: Amir Khan uses courage and stamina because he needs this to stay in for 10 rounds of boxing. I liked balloon game because I won, I used courage to have a go.
Adam: Mark Cavendish uses strength to keep going when he’s tired. I enjoyed the jelly game because I cheated in a funny way, I used teamwork and speed.
Sam McFarlane: He Kexin uses flexibility to do what she’s doing. I took part in the water sponge game.