The year 8 kic.in2.study group have just completed a ten week programme based at the Cobblers Study Centre. Attendance was excellent and we saw a great improvement in confidence in a number of the young people. Early sessions were dedicated to getting to know each other and learning to work as a team. Margaret’s drain pipe game was great fun, and we almost cracked group juggling.
We were lucky to have the opportunity to tour the stadium, visiting many areas the general public don’t usually get the chance to see. Lots of photographs were taken and the students then used Publisher to create a comic strip incorporating photographs and text. The stadium was the location for the orienteering activity which brought out the competitive spirit in several people.
A presentation by the healthy food and drink team saw us sampling a range of fruit, some familiar, some fairly strange, and then we made and taste-tested several smoothie recipes. Mmmmmm
We followed up this activity by devising a healthy menu for the Cobblers team on a match day.
A memory workshop challenged us all to improve our memory skills through a series of activities ranging from the familiar “I went to market….”, Kim’s game, practising grouping things together, card memory games and more complicated visualisation tricks. Everyone saw some improvement in their ability to remember things. On another occasion we looked at different types of intelligence and tried to work out where our strengths lay - were we number smart, people smart, body smart, word smart, myself smart, picture smart, nature smart or music smart?
One week saw us visiting Franklin Gardens to join a PfS group from the Saints Study Centre in a Circus Skills workshop led by the county jester Kevin Burke. Research has shown that these activities give the brain a bit of a workout and aid concentration. We also saw how it encouraged the students to persevere at an activity and keep practising until they’d mastered it. We saw some great juggling, fantastic work with the flower sticks, superb plate spinnng and impressive stilt walking.
Bellboating was a new venture for the Kic.in2.study programme and we are very grateful to Margaret for organising our session at the Northampton Sailing Club at Pitsford reservoir. She assured us the boat was virtually unsinkable, provided everyone with buoyancy aids, a quick lesson in the rudiments, and before we knew it the Kic.in2.study boat crew were on the water!
This has been a fantastic group to work with and we will miss them on Wednesday evenings. However we hope to see them on some of the holiday activities on offer, and again next year.
Volunteering as a Mentor at the Cobblers Study Centre is continuing to be an extremely rewarding experience. Thirteen students walk in through the doors on the first day of their experience here, shy and uncertain of what to expect. In a few short weeks the students charge through the doors, excited about their new challenges. It is my pleasure as a mentor to be a friend to these students, helping them to improve their Literacy, Numeracy and ICT skills through games and challenges. As some of these students have never experienced using a computer before it is wonderful that they are learning these new skills. Orienteering, Smoothie making and the Club Challenge are just a few of the experiences which I am proud to be a part of, supporting, guiding and building confidence in the students which will last throughout life. I have made some wonderful friends in the students who I have supported, many who feel sad on their final departure from our centre, and the staff here continue to make my work fulfilling and enjoyable.
