News

Year 5 and 6 pupils from Littleborough Primary School, Rochdale spent the day at Middleton City Learning Centre creating animations in support of their Shakespeare work on 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Students and staff worked alongside CLC Media specialist Graham Kay to plan and shoot group animations depicting scenes from the play. Pupils had previously worked in school on there chosen scenes and created a range of backgrounds and props to enhance their animated stories. Pupils were shown a range of camera techniques and used the CLC's Apple iBooks and 'I Can Animate' software.

Schools are invited to submit a film made by pupils for screening within the 2009 Greater Manchester Schools Film Festival. The screenings will take place at the Odeon Cinema in the Printworks, Manchester on Sunday 21 June 2009

The Film Festival 2009 will include prizes awarded in the following categories:

• Best Primary Film
• Best Secondary Fiction Film
• Best Secondary Factual Film (KS3 only)

Please see Film Festival 2009 for details or contact John McKiernan on 0161 653 9123.

City Learning Centres across Greater Manchester will be supporting schools who wish to take part in the GM9 CAD-CAM competition.

The competition is open to both Primary and Secondary aged pupils, who will work in teams to design, make and promote a product. Each team will then have the opportunity to present their product to a panel of 'Dragon's Den' judges to decide on a winner for each of the categories (Primary and Secondary). There will be prizes for the winning teams to help motivate pupils and give them a competitive edge.

Middleton City Learning Centre, in conjunction with Secondary ICT Consultant David Dixon and Secondary English Teaching and Learning Consultant Sarah-Jane York, recently held a ‘Podcasting Day’ for ICT and English subject leaders.

Both Middleton and Rochdale City Learning Centres have recently undergone the latest phase of refurbishment as added flexibility is given to four existing teaching and learning spaces.

Each CLC now benefits from two state-of-the-art delivery spaces which can each accommodate up to 21 students and staff. The two spaces are separated by a retractable ‘sound-proof’ wall which allows the two independent spaces to be opened up to support a group size in excess of 40 people.

State-of-the-art media equipment arrived at Wardle at the start of the new academic year courtesy of support from Middleton and Rochdale City Learning Centres.

CLC staff have been working closely with Anthony Bateman, head of Media and Film Studies at Wardle High School, and his students have made numerous visits to both Rochdale and Middleton centres during the last academic year.

Students from local secondary schools Balderstone, Cardinal Langley, Middleton Technology, and Springhill attended a two-week Summer School at the beginning of the summer break. In what is likely to be a UK first the students worked on the new Digital Cre8or award.

This innovative and exciting course from the British Computer Society is designed to meet the needs of those who wish to make the most of digital devices, such as iPods, and cameras, and computers. It is a nationally recognised qualification and completion of the whole course is equivalent to a Grade B at GCSE.

BBC News School Report gives 11-14 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience.

Using lesson plans and materials from the BBC News Report website, and with support from BBC staff, teachers and CLC staff help students develop their journalistic skills and become School Reporters.

On 26 March 2009, schools will take part in a News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school or CLC website, to which the BBC aims to link.

Several primary schools have come to the CLC over the course of recent months to produce shadow puppet movies. The activity takes the idea of the traditional shadow puppet show one stage further by involving the children in recording the narrative in high definition digital video.

The end of the summer term saw Year 4 pupils from Whittaker Moss Primary School take part in a Digital Literacy project at Middleton CLC.

The project, aimed at supporting the new primary literacy framework, saw the children work in small groups to produce a trailer from a selection of box-office hit movies including Matilda, Shrek 3, Witches, Chicken Run and 101 Dalmatians.