This week students attending the Study Centre from the Wellingborough area  have been on a tour of the Nene Park Stadium.  They got to have a tour behind the scenes of the club including the players changing rooms and the players tunnel.

Whilst there the young learners worked in teams to complete an orienteering activity.  This involved solving maths sums to locate nine seats in the stadium behind which were control cards with nine different letters.  They then had to solve an anagram to complete the activity. 

On their return to the Study Centre, students produced a Stadium Tour poster using Comic Life for the PC.

stadium-tour-poster-year5

stadium-tour-poster-year8

The Diamonds Study Centre was approached by the school to run a series of sessions designed to improve literacy skills and too motivate a group of football loving Year 9 students. These have been running within school hours and the initial session involved the students touring the Nene Park complex, completing both a numeracy and literacy based orienteering challenge, within the stadium, and then using the computers to design a poster with text and photographs to record their visit.

Students interview Justin Edinburgh prior to the game.

 On Tuesday evening the group interviewed Justin Edinburgh in the Study Centre before the game against Eastbourne Borough, wrote a skeleton match report during the game and then returned to the Study Centre to write a complete match report the following afternoon. It is hoped that the two winning reports, selected by staff at the school, written by Jamaar and Harry will feature on the club website and possibly in a future match day programme. During the final session we are hoping to arrange an interview and a practical coaching activity with Diamonds young players Aynsley McDonald and Adam Sharpe since they are Wellingborough based players and Adam is a former pupil of the school concerned.

Students hard at work writing their match reports.

Teachers from the school have sent their thanks to the club and the Study Centre for their assistance with the project and they have been extremely pleased with the attitude of their students and the quality of work which has been produced.     

Please click on the links below to see the two winning match reports which will appear in the Match Day program on Saturday 27th February.

newspaper-report-1

newspaper-report-2

Our young learners have been working hard this week and having lots of fun completing their Club Challenge posters.  Students devised their dream team with a £60 million and designed a stadium for their football club as well as choosing a suitable manager, sponsor and mascot for their team.  The posters were all completed to a high standard - congratulations to you all!

Next week:  Player Interviews

This week saw the start of the Spring term for the Playing for Success programme at Diamonds Study Centre.  3 Primary and 3 Secondary schools from the Wellingborough area are taking part this term in this exciting 10 week programme. 

Young learners had a tour of the Sports Centre this week as well as using the ICT equipment to make name badges.  They then learnt the art of origami by making football shirts out of folded paper.  The young learners also started their Diamonds Diaries to record their experiences of their time here.

Lots of fun was had by all and we look forward to continuing with the groups next week.

Next week: Young learners will make a start on their Club Challenge which will see them design their own stadium, choose their dream team, manager and mascot and much more!

The Diamonds Study Centre held its Presentation Evening on Monday 7^th December to celebrate the end of the Autumn Term of “Playing for Success” sessions at the centre. The sessions have been run in the evenings, at the Study Centre based at Rushden and Diamonds Football Club, as part of a national government initiative which aims to improve the student’s standards in Numeracy, Literacy and Information Technology as well as to boost their confidence and self-esteem through the medium of “sports related” activities. The scheme involves a partnership between the Department for Children, Schools and Families, Northamptonshire County Council and the football club and is geared towards Year 5 and Year 8 students. There are currently 163 centres, representing nineteen different sports, based at professional sports clubs across the country.

The Presentation Evening for the Diamonds Study Centre was held in the Kimberley  Suite at Rushden and Diamonds Football Club and the room was full to capacity as relatives and teachers watched the youngsters, aged between 9 and 14 years, being presented with their certificates by Rushden & Diamonds first team players Curtis Osano and Craig Farrell.

The schools involved in the scheme this term have all come from the Rushden area namely from Ferrers Arts College, Huxlow Science College and Manor Sports College, in addition to the younger students from Newton Road, Finedon Mulso and Windmill Primary Schools.

Study Centre Manager Rob Jones said, “The Presentation Evening was a nice occasion for all concerned and it was pleasing to hear some of the young people talking to their teachers and families about their achievements during the course of the term. The youngsters have been a credit to their families and their schools and the tremendous turnout reflected the high regard shown for the Playing for Success initiative. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the teachers and parents for their assistance this term and to commend Rushden and Diamonds Football Club for its involvement with the local community and the continuing support which it has given to the Study Centre during this academic term.”  

Year 5 students with Curtis Osano.

Year 8 students with Craig Farrell.

This week our young learners became budding young journalists interviewing players from Rushden and Diamonds to find out what it is like to be a professional footballer and how this fits in with their life outside of football.

We saw mixed emotions from the students this week as they displayed a combination of excitement and nervousness at interviewing Jack Ainsley, Michael Corcoron, Nicky McNamara, Aaron O’Connor, Craig Farrell, Curtis Osano, Sam Smith, Dale Roberts, Joe Day, Jake Beecroft and Jack Higgins  from Rushden and Diamonds first team, as well as a prospective future stars in Aynsley McDonald, Callum Earls and Jake Gillingwater from the Rushden and Diamonds Academy. 

All the students showed great maturity when asking the players questions about themselves and the opportunity of talking to the footballers had clearly motivated the students to complete their follow up work of producing a write up of the interviews.  The interview activity and the follow up work proved to be an extremely worthwhile exercise in the improvement of their speaking, listening and writing skills in a very enjoyable way.

Two students from Latimer school attended the official opening of Volleyball England’s National Volleyball training centre. This state of the art Olympic standard Volleyball centre is based at the Kettering Conference Centre. Supporter 2 Reporter (part of Radiowaves: www.radiowaves.co.uk) is a project where youngsters train to be youth sports reporters.

After the official opening and speeches from Volleyball England staff, we watched the Junior National Teams (girls and boys) and GB men’s sitting team (future paraolympians) in training and the reporters interviewed some of their players and officials. They spoke with Maria Bertelli (GB Volleyball player, 65 caps), Dan Hunter (GB Volleyball player who had recently been promoted from youth to senior squad), Leo Trench (Talent spotter, Volleyball England), Robbie Barrett (sitting squad captain) and Rakesh Misuria. (sitting squad player) Matt Rogers, Sitting Volleyball development manager advised the reporters about their questions.

To see the reporter’s blogs, stories and edited interviews, visit: http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/s2rnorthampton

Press release:

The National Volleyball Centre (NVC) will provide top class sports facilities for International athletes and competitions in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. East Midlands Development Agency, Kettering Borough Council and Northampton Enterprise Limited have also provided funding which has helped to create the centre into a top class venue by creating four volleyball courts, new seating areas and a social and educational area. The Kettering Conference Centre has an excellent combination of both conference and indoor sporting facilities with good wheelchair access.

Lisa Wainwright, CEO of Volleyball England expresses her delight on the centre: “We identified within our strategic plan 2009/13 our aspiration to establish a National Centre for training and competition to ensure we can provide top quality facilities and services to our talented athletes and all our educators within the sport.”

Wow!  We have been having so much fun this week at the Study Centre as the young learners became programming technicians for Robolab!  The Robolab software allows pupils to programme a lego built buggy to follow a set of instructions and move in different directions.  The young learners took part in three challanges:

The Conference challenge - the buggy must turn exactly 360 degrees.

The Championship challenge - the buggy must be parked in the parking bay.

The Premiership challenge - the buggy must be parked in the Premiership garage.

All the young learners did fantastically with many completing all three of the challenges!  Well done to you all!

The Games are Coming…

Pass it On is the Playing for Success (PfS) 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games national legacy programme.  In the run up to the Games, Pass it On aims to engage all PfS centres in activities around the Games through a national competition and a resource exchange across regions. This is a unique opportunity for PfS centres to use the Olympics and Paralympics as a key resource to raise standards.

The scheme was launched on Tuesday November 3^rd as balloons were released at PfS Centres across the country. Fifteen students from Newton Road Primary School in

Rushden are pictured with Nicky, a BT volunteer, with their

Balloons outside the RDFC Sports Centre.

Competitions

The series of national competitions, launched at the PfS conference in May, follows the focus areas of literacy in Year 1, numeracy in Year 2 and ICT in Year 3, starting with the task ‘Create a poem inspired by the Olympic and Paralympics Games’. Each year students will be invited to submit entries to their PfS centre where regional judging will take place before national finalists are announced at the PfS conference.

Values Relay

Throughout the regions a relay of resources will take place, each resource or ‘baton’, representing an Olympics and Paralympics Value together with Olympic and Paralympics Heroes’ themes; these provide a resource for the competitions and other work that will develop as an online sharing network of ideas and good practice. Centres will be able to upload their work based on the Values Relay to the Get Set website to gain the individual centre and student LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) recognitions. Over the three years in the run up to the 2012 Games there will be nine Values for nine regions over nine terms.

Aspirations, skills and opportunities

A key aspect of the programme is the involvement of young people. London won the right to host the Games by illustrating what it would bring to our young people in terms of raising aspirations, skills and opportunities. It will be the PfS students who vote for the winners of the competitions who will then become national PfS ambassadors. LOCOG awarded Pass it On the ‘Inspire Mark’ in May 2009 – the first Department for Children, Schools and Families initiative to be recognised in this way. Rex Hall Associates leads Pass it On which is being developed and steered by nominated PfS Centre Managers representing every Government Office region, together with a member from the LOCOG education team. This group is leading the Games’ PfS legacy activities regionally by disseminating opportunities and supporting other centres to access resources, enabling and ensuring the development of a national network of good practice.

Guidelines are available on the PfS website

www.playingforsuccessonline.org.uk