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Once again the National Cooking Bus has visited Scunthorpe to give young learners and teaching professionals alike the opportunity to increase their culinary skills. This time, Study Heslam based at Heslam Park Club, Ashby Road, Scunthorpe hosted the bus which was one of the oldest of the fleet that tour the country. The usual Yorkshire and Humberside bus was at an alternative venue this week so we had the pleasure of meeting Michaela, Gillian (both experienced teachers who delivered the sessions this week) and Stu (responsible for driving, setting up and maintaining the bus during its stay) for the first time.

Like previous visits from the mobile classroom, teachers and other teaching professionals took part in courses designed to help them deliver cookery sessions back at school which included advice regarding healthier lifestyle choices and dietary tips.
However, yesterday saw some of our good friends from the community of Ealand join forces with students from High Ridge School Specialist Sports College on the Cooking Bus to bake focaccia, an Italian bread and a bean salad to accompany it.

One of the comments made in the session was that in the 10 years Michaela had been involved with the Focus on Food Cooking Bus initiative this was the first time she’d experienced this kind of intergenerational learning and felt that it was a truly positive experience for all involved.
The main benefit for the learners apart from gaining experience in tried and tested food preparation techniques was an increase in confidence and self-esteem. Having the opportunity to discuss things like favourite foods and trying ingredients which were new to many of them was also something relished by the participants.

Photos from the day can be viewed on our Picasa Web Album link on the left hand side of the main page or by clicking here.

Look North reporter Simon Spark also joined in on the fun covering the event for the BBC. It is hoped that his report will be broadcasted on BBC One’s Look North programme tonight from 6.30pm so make sure you tune in to find out more about the event. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Simon and the BBC for covering the event.

Our funding agreement with various partners requires us to produce an Annual Report. The principle objective of the document is to illustrate the years’ achievements, developments and results and to set new targets for the year ahead. Our report demonstrates that we keep achieving good results and the reason for that is no secret – the real strength of the Study Centre is the collaboration of all the key partners involved in the diverse range of learning programmes.

Secondly, it is the dedication and enthusiasm of the strategy group, the centre staff and volunteers who continually put the interests of the children at the top of their agenda. Thirdly, the partnership with our major funding partners, The DCSF, the Local Authority and the Football Club, whose contributions are vital to the very existence and future direction of the centre. Most importantly it is the learners’ attitude and enthusiasm which continually inspire the team to come up with new and stimulating ways to innovate and develop both the programmes of study and the thrilling environment in which they learn.

You can find the report three ways. 1) Clicking on the photo of the front page of our Annual Report to the right of this article to download it directly. 2) Click here to link to our Reports & Case Studies section on our website. 3) Via the menu, select About Us then Reports & Case Studies. The document is a relatively small PDF file so make sure you have the most up to date Adobe Reader software if you any problems viewing it.

From today you’ll notice that on the left hand side of our website you can see in real time what our learners are producing at Study United FC. This is the first major change to the functionality and design of our website since this second version of our website launched at the end of 2005. These are web feeds, taken from three external websites, for which we must remind you we aren’t responsible! These are Making the News, Picasa Web Albums and YouTube.

Making the News (MTN) - is a free online publishing system for schools. MTN is accessible over the World Wide Web. It is hosted by the National Education Network. Teachers and pupils can use MTN at school and/or at home for a variety of purposes. It supports any area of the curriculum at any Key Stage. News can be broadcast, published and accessed online. It can contain text, images, animation, audio and video. Our learners have published award winning work with us for two years now, writing articles about their time with us, home life, subjects at school they enjoy any much more. To find out more about MTN click here to visit the website.

Picasa Web Albums is a site owned by Google which is a fast and easy way for us to put our photos online to share with you. Using either the website or the Picasa software we can upload entire albums of high quality photos of our events, ground tours or anything else the learners would like to share with you. To find out more about Picasa visit the website by clicking here.

Finally, I’m sure you’re aware that YouTube is a free online video streaming service that allows anyone to view and share videos. On it you are likely to find interviews with the players, speed-stack competitions and much more! Visit here to see more of YouTube.

We feel it is essential to try and stay ahead of the game and use technologies which our young people are used to using socially and apply them in an educative way.

All three of these feeds will be updated by the Centre staff rather than the learners directly to ensure that nothing inappropriate is uploaded. E-safety (keeping young people safe in the virtual world) is extremely important to us and it should be for you too. To find out more about E-safety visit the Becta website here.

Thursday 27th November saw a special lunch with the players and pupils from Hibaldstow Primary School who have been attending the Study Centre for the past 10 weeks after school. The children, who were extremely excited at the prospect of meeting the Iron’s finest sat down to eat with the players in Scunthorpe United’s restaurant.

Most lunchtimes the players can be found tucking into their healthy meals, refuelling themselves after a hard training session. The public always have the chance to dine alongside them every day but it was new territory to have a group of school children accompany them for dinner.

The children experienced some of the healthy meals cooked by Glanford Park’s catering staff and enjoyed them thoroughly, whilst having the chance to talk to their favourite players.

You can find photos from the day on our new Flickr account here.

Always a favourite with the staff at Study United FC, Jane, myself, Colin, Michael and Cheryl will be making an appearance at Ealand Victory Hall for a Coffee Morning organised by Ealand residents Linda (often heard regularly on the phone to Burnsy on BBC Radio Humberside after a game) and June. Happening on the 4th December between 10am and 12noon the event’s proceeds are kindly donated to the Study Centre for the benefit of the young learners who attend sessions with us every day.

We will be running a quiz for the visitors with a chance to win some Scunthorpe United prizes. Hopefully we will secure the services of some of the players to also make an appearance, no doubt to be on hand to draw the raffle. I myself will be holding out for the tinned peaches again!