Michael ready and raring to go with the TV studio equipment at Messingham Primary School.

This week we have enjoyed a day with Messingham Primary school as part of their school’s celebration of information and communication technologies (ICT). The school has a wonderful selection of ICT such as iPads, iPods, an X-Box all designed to be used to support teaching and learning. We were asked to come along and bring our live TV studio equipment including the green screen to record a series of news programmes on dinosaurs which were produced by three classes of Year 1 and 2 pupils.

We’ve also been working with Oakfield Primary school as part of a creative media project over the coming weeks. They are experiencing different parts of our creative media programme such as the use of the live TV studio, computer game creation and audio production. The programme will give the children the skills required to present information in a creative way. We look forward to showcasing their work online.

Finally, we’ve had some of our family learners produce their own videos about their experiences with us at Study Parks. The video will promote their work to other potential family learners in future. The group from Crosby school has included parents and their children who have been working with Jo, a tutor from Adult Education as part of a 15 week course. While the children are improving their mathematics skills with our support, the parents work towards a Level 1/2 qualification in maths under the stewardship of the Adult Education tutor.

This is Killingholme Primary School's green-screen set-up

It’s been a busy start of the new term at Study Parks with plenty of meetings, events and excursions for the team. At the start of the new year we made the decision to merge the multiple Twitter accounts for the centres (@StudyUnitedFC and @StudyHeslam) to @StudyParks. As a result you now have one quick and easy way to keep in touch with what we’re doing at Study Parks. This also posts content onto our Facebook page to make sure as many people as possible can view any updates we post.

In other news we’ve been working with Killingholme Primary School to install a new “green-screen” solution for them. After visiting our live TV studio at the end of last term, the school approached us with a budget to procure, install and train their staff on equipment for their pupils to use in their own setting. Although it is early days, the initial feedback we’ve received from the teachers has been fantastic and it was great to see after just a few hours training some interesting ideas being generated by them about how they were planning to use the resource. The really exciting time begins next week when we unleash the equipment upon a group of Year 5 and 6 pupils from the school who will no doubt surprise us with their own ideas for the equipment which we won’t have even thought of. There is nothing we like more than being inspired by young people!

We have also been working with Mr. Travis at Burton-upon-Stather Primary School to improve their IT network. The school has been a long term supporter of our scheme and we were only too happy to be invited into their community and bring our expertise with us. The school had been experiencing some challenges with their equipment and wanted us to investigate to make sure they were getting the best out of what they have. In addition to supporting the technical aspects of their computer network we are also hoping to train some more of their staff to improve their knowledge to ensure the children at the school can confidently use the technology to support their learning. If you work in a school and this is something you are interested in talking to us about then please get in touch with us.

Michael has been out and about meeting with new partners as part of the Get IT Together project. It is designed to help people get online and recognise the benefits the internet can bring. Although it is early days, we have held meetings with local community organisations like the Crosby Community Association, North Lincolnshire Homes and other representatives from North Lincolnshire Council to look at ways to support the wider community with their “digital inclusion”. To find out more, visit our Get IT Together page on our website which will gradually be populated with information as the project develops.

Finally, we’ve welcomed some new learners this month in the Reaching for Success programme who we hope will enjoy their time with us. Brian and the gang have been busy investigating new qualifications for them to take to make sure that they are achieving their potential and being recognised for it. Sadly we’ve also said goodbye to tutor Jade who has been working with us for a while now. Jade has moved into a full time position elsewhere so we’d like to thank her for all her hard work and wish her all the very best for her new job. However, as one door closes, another one opens so we look forward to welcoming a new member to the team in the next week or two.

Family Discovery Learning sessions are a great way for you to spend time together

Family Discovery Learning (FDL) sessions with Study Parks are designed to help you support your child(ren) with their school work in the classroom or at home, using digital technology.

FDL is based around teaching you skills around researching, creating and presenting information to develop both your own and your child(ren)’s confidence in learning. We call the concept “enquiry based learning” which encourages you and your child(ren) to investigate things more thorougly.

To make it relevant, we always try and link the activities around something currently happening at your child(ren)’s school so what is learnt can be applied straight away. To find out more about Family Discovery Learning, why not visit our dedicated FDL page?