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30th July 2010
Some very exciting news - we have
been invited to run our popular Rocket Scientists course at Braeside
Education & Conference Centre in Wiltshire next January. This is the
first course that we have been able to deliver in Wiltshire and it is
hoped that Braeside will be adding some further courses and dates for
spring 2011 later. Please see the
Calendar for
further details. Braeside has been added to the
Links page.
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19th July 2010
We have just added a whole load of
dates to the calendar for Spring 2011 at Kilve Court. Kilve Court
have kindly allocated a total of eleven slots to us, both weekends and
week-long courses, so we are able to offer our complete portfolio of
subjects....which is great!
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22nd March 2010
A further autumn 2010 date at Kilve
Court added to the calendar - we will now be running Hot Hackers in
November.
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3rd March 2010
A few autumn 2010 dates at Kilve
Court added to the calendar.
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8th October 2009
Exciting
news - we have just finished developing a new course called "Wacky Races".
It is a maths, physics and ICT weekend based around Formula One racing and
a huge digital Scalextric layout. Leeson House have already booked
the course for May 2010 and the details are on the
Calendar.
This particular iteration will be for students in
education years 7 - 9.
Warner Leisure have invited us to
run a whole series of astronomy weekends and evening lectures at their
Cricket St. Thomas hotel. Rather than confuse the AGAT calendar, all
our Warner Leisure activities now appear under a separate link on the
contents page.
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29th September 2009
Supporting our aim
to provide courses for students above academic year 8, Leeson House have
just agreed to run a four day version of Robotics next July. This
will be for years 8 - 11 and full details are on the
Calendar.
Still working on updating the
Course
Overviews page, so apologies if it doesn't
read correctly at the moment and the links take you to some strange
places!
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12th September 2009
Lots of news this
time round!
Most importantly, congratulations
to Tone on achieving her PGCE teaching qualification this summer!
Parents often ask
us if we run courses for students older than academic year 8 and sadly,
the answer is generally "no" as the centres we use normally like to cater
for years 6 - 8. Well
that has all changed and Kilve Court have agreed to run two courses in
Spring 2010 for years 8 - 11.
From Tuesday 6th April 2010 we will be
running a four-day version of Spy Skool for all those budding secret
agents, followed by Advanced Rockets over the weekend commencing Friday
23rd April 2010.
We have also
extended the age range of our Hot Hackers course in July 2010 to cover
year 9 pupils. Full details are on the
Calendar.
Next is a unique opportunity for
students in years 5 - 7 to
take part in our popular Robotics course which we are running at Kilve
Court for five days commencing Monday 12th April 2010. This will be
the first time we have delivered the course in Somerset and the details
are available on the
Calendar.
We have made some
changes to the web site format. The entire site has now been
designed to display correctly at a screen resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels
(previously we have always used 1024 x 768, but that was becoming a bit dated
with the standard of modern pc graphics). The
Course
Overviews page is in the process of being updated to reflect the most recent additions
to our portfolio of AGAT subjects.
Finally, we only have two of the
Bresser Lyra refractor telescopes left for sale in the
Rocket Shop. Really
need the space here in the office, so the price has been reduced to £70.
We still have some of the rocket kits that we imported from the USA
available there too.
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19th July 2009
We have just agreed to run seven
courses at Kilve Court next spring. Details have been added to the
calendar.
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25th June 2009
It has been quite
a busy month with some exciting new developments. Firstly, I have
managed to secure a very limited quantity of Bresser Lyra refractor
telescopes that are ideal for beginners to Astronomy. The telescopes
normally retail for around £160, but I can offer them for £100. The
details have been added to the "Rocket Shop" page.
We have been invited to run
Astronomy Experience Weekends on behalf of Warner Leisure Hotels.
The Warner chain hosts these weekends for adults only and we are initially
responsible for two weekends at Cricket St. Thomas later this summer.
The details are included on the "Calendar" page together with a link to
the Cricket St. Thomas Warner Hotel as all bookings will be handled by
them.
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12th June 2009
Large update to the "Rocket Shop"
page - we currently have some kits available following the receipt of a
large import from the USA.
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1st May 2009
The calendar now includes
downloadable application forms for each course in a Microsoft Word format.
Clicking on a course title will open the relevant application form and
course details in a new window.
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23rd March 2009
Some 2010 dates at Leeson House
added to the calendar.
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16th March 2009
Autumn courses at Kilve Court
added to the calendar.
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28th February 2009
Our
Hot Hackers
course is proving to be so popular that Kilve Court have now asked us to
run an "overflow" course in July - there are only a few places left on
this iteration already!
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10th February 2009
Tone has
unfortunately had to go back into hospital for a short while after her
operation last year. This means that we have had to cancel her
Designs on Nature course that was to be running in March. Hopefully
Kilve Court will be able to re-schedule it for later in the year and we
all wish Tone a speedy recovery.
Two exciting new summer courses
have just been added to the calendar. We will be delivering a
special Robotics
week at Leeson House in July, followed by a
Mission to Mars at
Kilve Court in August. Both courses are designed to be extremely
challenging for our able, gifted and talented students and places are
limited.
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9th December 2008
More new courses
at Leeson House added to the calendar for 2009.
Leeson House now have their own
dedicated web site at
http://www.leesonhouse.com and I am in the process of updating the
various links to them.
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24th November 2008
New courses at Leeson House added
to the calendar for February 2009.
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19th November 2008
Our colleagues,
Rosie Bird and Jennifer Grace, run a number of excellent creative writing
courses and a link to their website
Creative Creatures has just been added to the Links page.
We are delighted to have been
invited back to the Ham Hill Centre this winter to deliver a couple of
evening sessions. We will be running
Winter Skies on Tuesday 24th
February 2009 followed by Space
Detectives on Tuesday 10th March. The sessions are open to
everyone.
In a blatant act
of self-indulgence, I have added a link to the website for my Tickford
Turbo Capri A400MOD
which is the "other" love of my life!
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22nd October 2008
The links to Leeson House are now
working again!
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15th October 2008
Links to Leeson
House appear to be broken at the moment. I will update them as soon
as I can establish what has happened - probably some re-organisation of
the Dorset Education Authority web pages that nobody told me about!
Autumn course numbers have been
updated on the calendar - hardly any places left now. Rocket
Scientists for next spring has almost filled already!
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10th September 2008
Student numbers for the autumn
courses updated on the calendar - places are filling fast!
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13th July 2008
Spring 2009 courses at Kilve Court
added to the calendar.
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6th March 2008
We are delighted
to announce that Phil Judkins will be attending Spy Skool this year as a
guest speaker on the subject of the Enigma Machine. Phil owns one of
the very few original Enigma machines still in existence and will be
bringing it with him! Parents of students who are attending Spy
Skool are invited to come along for the evening - please click
here for further details.
We have now agreed final details
for the
Summer Extravaganza at Leeson House. Our colleagues Dave Hollis
and Liz Holmes will be joining us for what promises to be a unique
opportunity. Dave will be directing a production of A Midsummer
Night's Dream, Liz will be co-ordinating the design of costumes for the
performance and we will be televising the whole lot! Please click
the link above for full details.
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31st January 2008
Autumn 2008
courses at Kilve Court added to the calendar.
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21st January 2008
Autumn 2008
courses are beginning to appear on the calendar and Leeson House have
already booked a repeat of Advanced Rocket Scientists for 2009!
Spaces are filling-up quickly for
our special astronomy evening at Ham Hill in February. This event is
open to the whole family and includes the opportunity to use our monster
telescope (weather permitting). We hope to back-up this event with
some "star parties" at Ham Hill during the year.
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16th January 2008
A belated Happy
New Year to everyone!
The calendar has just been updated
with student numbers for this spring - courses are filling fast, so I
would recommend booking as soon as possible to guarantee a place.
Kilve
Court have asked us to run another of our popular
Into Orbit
space courses at the end of July - details are on the calendar.
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7th November 2007
Most of the autumn 2007 courses at Kilve Court are now full. There
are some spaces left on
48 Hours but
you will need to book quickly.
Various courses have been added to
the 2008 spring calendar including an exciting new weekend called
Hot Hackers
which provides the opportunity to build a satellite broadband network in
the classroom and then use it to explore and "hack" into the Internet's
backbone!
We have been invited to run special evening and weekend sessions at the
Ham Hill Centre near Yeovil. These will be open to the whole family
and all ages. The first session called
Winter Skies is an evening of
astronomy on 12th Februray 2008. Other topics are planned for later
next year.
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16th October 2007
Details now available for a unique course scheduled at Leeson House
next summer.
Shakespeare in the Making - A Television Production Opportunity will
involve us working with two other tutors to co-ordinate the professional
filming of Midsummer Night's Dream.
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3rd October 2007
Regrettably, Leeson House have had to cancel the Rocket Scientists
and Bright Sparks courses that were scheduled for later this month due to
lack of numbers. My sincere apologies to those students who had
signed-up for these courses - please contact me if you would like to
attend alternative iterations.
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21st September 2007
Calendar updated with the latest booking figures for all autumn
2007 courses.
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30th August 2007
Calendar updated with the latest booking figures for Kilve Court's
autumn courses - they are filling up quickly!
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28th July 2007
Advanced Rocket Scientists is now available! We have scheduled
the first iteration of this exciting new course at Leeson House for
January 2008.
It is disappointing for students
when courses that they wish to attend become full. I have added a
new feature on the calendar to help applicants judge the popularity of a
particular course - in addition to showing when each course is
fully-subscribed, there will also be a note indicating how many places are
currently available. This figure will be updated as I receive
information from the host centres.
A shortcut has
been added to the contents page which will take you directly to the calendar
of courses that have been scheduled.
A new rocket
kit called the "Jewel" has been added to the
Rocket Shop. The
"Jewel" is slightly larger than the "Jem" and takes full-size A engines.
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15th July 2007
Congratulations to one of our
regular students, Freya Spriggs, on obtaining membership of NAGTY.
We were delighted to have been asked to submit a report in support of her
application.
The dates for our
special summer 2008 course at Leeson House have been brought forward by
one week and are now Monday 11th to Sunday 18th August 2008.
A full range of spring 2008
courses at Kilve Court have been added to the calendar. We are also
running our next-level electronics course
Power Junkies
for the first time there.
A big "thank you"
to all the staff at Leeson House for hosting a great summer fete
yesterday. Our display of courses that we offer, the mobile mast
(Harold) and appearance of our new giant telescope generated a lot of
interest.
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19th May 2007
The calendar now has the dates for
a very exciting new course at Leeson House next summer. We are
working in partnership with two other experienced tutors to provide a combined television, costume design and theatre production
week. This is a unique opportunity - please contact me for further
details.
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3rd May 2007
Slight change to
the age range for our
Around the World
in 48 Hours course running at Kilve Court this autumn - it is now for
students in years 7 - 9.
The deadline for
Roving
Reporters this spring at Leeson House is 8th May. We do not have
any further iterations of the course planned until 2008, so the May course
will be the last opportunity to take part in the television studio this
year.
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19th April 2007
Change of date for
Rocket
Scientists at Kilve Court - the course originally scheduled for the
weekend commencing Friday 12th October 2007 has been moved to Friday 16th
November. The calendar has been updated today.
Our new 12 inch telescope is
working brilliantly. It will be used during
Aliens
& Asteroids at Leeson House and on the
Into Orbit
week at Kilve Court this summer.
Thanks to the
generosity of Wolverhampton University, we have managed to make some
serious upgrades to the television equipment used for
Roving
Reporters and
Oscar Winners.
We now have a professional 6-input Sony video switcher with all the
options and a fleet of
Panasonic studio cameras - a few more miles of cabling and Electrical
Safety Testing stickers coming out of our ears!
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16th March 2007
Calendar updated
with courses at Leeson House up to the beginning of 2008!
My old demonstration rocket is no
longer hanging from at tree at Leeson House - it now forms part of a
Rook's nest!
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3rd March 2007
I have included a link to Dave
Hollis on the Links Page. Dave is a colleague of mine who delivers
first-class drama courses at both Kilve Court and Leeson House.
Dave's web site is at
http://www.dodrama.co.uk
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1st March 2007
We are planning a
new
Advanced Rocket Scientists course.
Following the tragic loss of my
demonstration rocket during the latest Rocket Scientists, I am
building a replacement with an on-board video camera. The original
rocket can be viewed at Leeson House, hanging from the branch of a tree @
50ft!
THE ROCKET SHOP IS
NOW OPEN !
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13th February 2007
Autumn 2007
courses at Kilve Court added to the AGAT calendar.
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8th February 2007
Leeson House
spring courses now confirmed - please see AGAT calendar for details.
Overflow Rocket Scientists course
running at Leeson House 9th - 11th March 2007.
We have just
upgraded our 8 inch Meade LX90 telescope to a new 12 inch LX200 model
which will enhance astronomy courses dramatically and provide the
opportunity to conduct serious deep-sky studies. Please don't ask
how much it cost......ouch!
http://www.meade.com/lx200r/index.html
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