Thanks to a fantastic response from Reading fans to an article run on the official website and in the programme recently, the Study Centre's Learning Zone is going from strength to strength.

Now, each school group taking part in our Study Support Centre's Learning Zone scheme has the benefit of at least two volunteers working with the pupils.

The Royals Learning Zone has just started working with three new schools this term; pupils from Oxford Road Community School, Whitley Park Junior School and Prospect School will have 20 hours of study support based around football and sporting themes in the run up to Christmas.

All the pupils have selected fantasy football teams and are now tracking their teams' progress and comparing their selections with the other pupils in their groups.

More than half the pupils from Whitley Park Junior School attended a 'Playing for Success' scheme last year and enjoyed it so much that they asked to come back again this term.

They have produced some excellent descriptive work based around a series of action shots from our match against Doncaster Rovers and have also completed the cup stacking challenge and used the data from the speed stacks to produce some statistical comparisons.

Prospect School students have been working on an extensive range of literacy and numeracy games and have also enjoyed producing Comic Life Posters.
While pupils from Oxford Rd have been producing video interviews in pairs on the Apple Macs and role-playing the part of Sky Sports commentators doing post-match analysis.

With more volunteers, the children have been even better supported to undertake work that they find challenging within a school environment.

Jenny Jones, the Centre Manager for the Royals Learning Zone, would like to say a personal thank you to all those volunteers who are helping us to make the young people's experience here challenging and exciting.