Portsmouth Football Club News

It was a case of ‘ship ahoy’ as the Pompey Study Centre sent two of its teachers down to Dorset in one of the new education buses to work with the Royal Manor Arts College and the Portland Weymouth National Sailing Academy for a week. Nicky Pointon and Becky Maddock were at the impressive sailing academy – the first 2012 Olympic venue to be completed – to help a group of 14-15 year olds from a Portland School improve their maths and science skills through the sailing theme. The bus has a unique IT classroom environment, which allowed the teenagers to use an innovative Activote system to tackle interactive sailing/maths and science quizzes on a large plasma screen. They also worked on laptops to look at recovery from exercise in an activity called ‘Fit for Football, Stamina for Sailing.’ For this they had to take part in sailing aerobics outside the bus - led by Nicky and Becky – before using their laptop to plot their own heart rate and interpret their own exercise recovery graphs. Other activities included the youngsters taking part in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style activity, in which they had to manage a budget and present their ideas to the two bus ‘dragons’ (Nicky and Becky!). They also created a photo comic strip diary of their week. Occasional chants of ‘Oh when the Saints’ could be heard every now and then from the sailing instructors but the Pompey Bus took pride of place in the National Sailing Academy compound and everyone was very impressed by what they saw. The project was capped with a royal visit from HRH Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, who were inspecting the Sailing Academy before leaving for Weymouth in a £9m yacht. Nicky said teaching on the bus was a delight due to the willingness of the teenagers. “The children really threw themselves into every single mad activity that had been planned for them,” she explained. “They all loved working on the bus and everyone was really sad when the week finally came to an end. “The children and their teachers have been invited to Fratton Park to visit the stadium and the Study Centre and we hope to see them in Portsmouth during the next couple of weeks - it appears that we may have some new Pompey fans.” The programme was funded by the Communicating for Success scheme.

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