Read a Million Words Year 7 students from St Mary Redcliffe School participated in the Secondary link up day, with the three City Learning Centre’s in Bristol. Each of the CLC’s designed an activity that would contribute to the students completion of Reading a Million Words in a year. The activities included a speed reading competition of Touching the Void by Joe Simpson via video conferencing. A forum based activity on the G8 issues had students debating the current poverty issues in Africa. The students conversed with the students in The-I CLC in Monks Park School. The students also took part in a questionnaire set by Aliens that were on a mission to decide whether they should recommend that they have teenagers on their own planet! Students were asked to read articles on teenage issues and their answers were scored for fun. They were then invited to debate some of the issues. It was estimated that the students managed to read an average of 10,080 words.

‘Anything is Possible’ This summer school will help to build up the students’ knowledge and understanding of Art & Design. Students will be able to experiment with new media skills that will act as confidence builders; they will learn how to marry traditional artistic practices with new ICT techniques. The summer school will aim to develop 2D outcomes into 3D outcomes. Staff leading the school will be experts in the fields of; digital video, graphic design, photography and animation. Who & What? The Art Commission Summer School is an opportunity for a maximum of 32 Yr 10 GCSE students to work with professional artists to complete and piece of work that will be installed in the CLC. The students and artists will work to an agreed brief in the CLC and will incorporate elements of ICT into the work or make it an integral part of the planning.

Bristol School students win National Film Award KWN (Kid Witness News) is a global educational programme sponsored by Panasonic. The programme is designed to stimulate students’ interest to learn through the use of video technology. The programmes began in the USA in 1989, increased to 200 schools in the US and expanded globally in 2003 and then, in 2004, European entries were first invited. Whitefield Fishponds Community School students were invited to participate in the 2005 programme, due to the great promise they showed in their 2004 video film entry, produced in collaboration with CLC3, in the Active Citizenship Network program. The KWN program required the students to look at aspects of being a Citizen of today’s society. The students were asked to produce a 3 minute film on the theme of either ‘Communication’ or ‘Ecology’.

Working entirely after school hours and in their holidays in their local City Learning Centre (CLC3), the 6 Whitefield students decided to tackle the current and topical issue of HIV and AIDS under the category of Communication. Through extensive local and international research into AIDS and HIV, the students realised that there was not enough information targeting teenagers. The team received supporting information from a range of organisations, including the Terrance Higgins Trust, Avert.com and props from Durex! When their research was done they decided to produce a film that tackled the issues of HIV and AIDS awareness head on. The film contains a mixture of hard hitting facts, interviews and the necessary sensitivity for such a globally important issue. As a result the students put together a film that achieved the title of KWN National winners, beating 10 other schools around the UK. Their Awareness film was also placed 2nd in the European finals (from hundreds of entries from several European countries). The International finals were held in Japan. The Whitefield Year 11 students Ella Askew, Lucy Mulvenna, David Levine, Sarah Pool, Robert Gollage and Olly Konstant are due to collect their award at an award ceremony on Monday 27 June 2005 at the Youth Parliament in Birmingham.

French GCSE Speaking and Listening FILM DAY 13th October, 2004 Year 10 students spent a day at CLC3 using a variety of software packages to support them in French speaking and listening. All the students’ activities were recorded by a film crew recruited by the DfES in order to develop Case Study materials for Key Stage 4. The students were initially overwhelmed by the presence of ‘proper’ TV camera equipment, but they soon gained confidence and entered enthusiastically into various activities, including using headphones with microphones to both speak and listen to French.

The topic for the day was ‘School Uniform’ and the final activity was an Interactive debate using voting devices to record student opinions on whether School Uniform should be worn. The final result was that School Uniform lost the debate by one vote!

13th October 2004 – Biggest Elluminate LIVE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM session in the UK, possibly the world! Over 200 participants from all over the England took part in this event. It was hosted by Stockton City Learning Centre and led by Val Brooks the Deputy Director. She is a Senior Examiner in GCSE Maths.

Val was able to go through key points that would help GCSE students to achieve a grade C or above. The session ran as an on-line classroom through the website www.elluminate.com. Participants were able to interact with each other and make contributions to the lesson under the teacher’s control. Val recorded the event and this link will take you to a clip of the recording. In order to view it you will need Windows Media Player.

Art commission The Brief To create an art installation for each of the ICT rooms in the CLC3, City Learning Centre. The pieces are to be inspired by the names of the rooms, which are Brunel, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Hendrix and Gandhi. The commissions should explore the range of Art within the ICT spectrum. ICT is to be the key element in either the planning or the final piece. Students A small group of art students will be selected from our partner schools. These students will work on one room and work with a professional artist. The collaborating artists will be experts in their fields. Due to the restraints of the time, we anticipate that we would have to set a short amount of time for each piece, utilizing after school sessions and Saturday mornings.

Few suggestions for the pieces and aspects of ICT are: Animation Photography Graphic Design Light Installations Stained glass Sculpture Sound and vision We would like to give students the opportunity to complete a commission to a clients brief and being able to see how a professional artist will research and develop their work. All the aspects of completing the work will enhance and support the key objectives of the GCSE course. Group sizes We would expect the commission to only be suitable for a small group of students for certain media, groups no larger than 6. The project will be for 6 rooms.

Report on Use of SAM Learning: Provision for nine Schools in Bristol through CLC3, Fishponds Nick Peers-Dent (ICT Adviser, Secondary Phase) Introduction The schools that SAM Learning was provided for via the City Learning Centre were; Portway Community School, Cotham School, Fairfield High School, St. Mary Redcliffe and Temple CEVA School, The City Academy, Whitefield Community School, St. Bede’s Catholic School, Monk’s Park School, and Henbury School. The provision in most cases began in March/April 2004 a few months before the summer examinations. National Statements from SAM There is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the use of eLearning and students’ progress. The greatest impact occurs when the students experience 10 or more hours of total eLearning usage. Results of this Project