View more News
Saturday, 07 November 2009
State primary school pupils have been given a chance to shine at
Bolton School, one of the North's leading independent
schools. The Shine: Serious Fun on Saturdays programme
launched on 7 November and, over the course of eleven weeks, Year 5
children from the local area will benefit from the School's
specialist teachers and state-of-the-art facilities. The
weekly sessions, aimed at pupils who would not normally be given
exposure to such expertise, are designed to challenge and stretch
gifted pupils and, longer term, to raise their aspirations.
Headmaster of the Boys' Division, Philip Britton, said: "We
are very excited about the Shine initiative. We are always looking
for ways of engaging with the local community and sharing our
expertise and facilities with bright children across the Bolton
borough. We aim to bring the best out of each child as well
as helping smooth their transition from primary to secondary
school. The opening day has been a great success, the
children have really enjoyed themselves and our Sixth Formers
have done an excellent job in guiding and assisting the pupils
with their learning. For them, it is a good opportunity to
undertake community service which is an integral part of their
education here at Bolton School."
Pranjal Arya, a 16 year old Sixth Former said: "It's
been a really interesting and fun morning, watching young
children from a whole range of backgrounds, each undertaking their
tasks in their own unique way. All the children have been very
attentive and I hope over the course of the programme we can help
develop their abilities."
The sessions span the whole curriculum, and are designed to be
serious with a focus on learning, but also fun! Forty pupils
registered for the programme and on the first morning they split
into two groups - one group working in the Sir Harry Kroto
Chemistry Building and the other group undertaking some simple
aptitude tests which would provide benchmark statistics - the hope
being that by the end of the programme in February 2010, pupils
have made progress.
Tawseen and Louis of St Thomas's Primary School enthused: "It's
been great so far - we've been doing Chemistry and it was
interesting to see how different things burned - magnesium was the
best."
Over the course of programme, other sessions will be taught by
teachers from both the Boys' and Girls' Divisions and will include
traditional subjects such as maths, history, design technology and
the sciences as well as more unusual offerings such as Russian and
Japanese, psychology, classics and martial arts! At the end of
the programme, prizes and certificates will be awarded at a
"Celebration Dinner" for pupils and their families.
Fifty per cent of the funding for the project has come from
Shine and Bolton School is only the second school outside of London
to be funded to host the scheme. The other half of the funding
comes from the school itself, and although the funding from Shine
will cease after the initial 3 years, the intention is to continue
to run the scheme through school funding alone.
Shine is an organisation that funds and develops educational
initiatives which encourage children and young people to raise
their achievement levels. The first Serious Fun on
Saturdays programme began in 2003, and since then three-year grants
have been approved for a further eleven schemes. Shine is currently
partnering with nine leading independent schools to provide Serious
Fun on Saturdays programmes for around 400 students a year from
over 80 state schools in London and Manchester. Patrons of
Shine include the Prime Minister's wife Sarah Brown, David Beckham
and Sir Alex Ferguson.
A gallery of photos from Day 1 can be found here.
Bookmark with: