Northamptonshire County Councillor Arthur McCutcheon’s backing enabled 20 pupils from Eastfield Primary School in Northampton to enjoy three days in the Saints Study Centre at the beginning of the current summer holiday.
As well as the usual fun and games at Franklin’s Gardens, including a behind-the-scenes stadium tour, tag rugby sessions, puppet making and workshops to improve literacy, numeracy and ICT, the youngsters also headed to Benham Sports Arena to experience trampolining at the home of the British Olympic squad!
“It is the ambition of any councillor looking to the future to enable youngsters to do as much as they can, sometimes in the face of great difficulties,” said Cllr McCutcheon. “Eastfield Primary School and the Saints Study Centre provide exactly such opportunities.
“I am delighted to be able to help this process with the Councillors’ Empowerment Fund, not only as a politician, but also as a teacher myself, and as a father of five.”
Study Centre manager Pete Austen says that having a sixth councillor providing backing from their Empowerment Fund – Cllr McCutcheon following in the footsteps of Northampton Borough Councillors David Mackintosh, Jonathan Nunn and Brandon Eldred and Northamptonshire County Councillors Suresh Patel and Phil Larratt – is vindication of the educational support work being done at Franklin’s Gardens.
“I’m delighted that another councillor has seen the benefits that a few days in the Study Centre can bring to youngsters,” he said. “As a parent myself, I know first hand that holiday periods are always difficult when it comes to finding varied activities for children to do, and we try to fill that gap here at Franklin’s Gardens.
“We had fantastic feedback from the youngsters, and we had an almost 100 percent attendance on every day that they were here. That was very pleasing, and hopefully we’ll see them again in the future.”
The Saints Study Centre has been extremely popular this July and August, with every place booked up throughout the six weeks, either by individual parents or schools – including The Duston School, Thomas Becket Catholic School, and Weston Favell Academy – using the facility as the base for transition programmes for incoming students.
However the Study Centre, which is also benefitting from the investment provided by NETGEAR in the networking infrastructure, is now taking bookings for the 2013/14 academic year. For more information just CLICK HERE!
