January Catch Up!

Happy Wednesday! 

January is almost coming to an end, and we think it's definitely time for a catch-up! 

Storytelling project- 

Tonight is our first Story Telling Project workshop!

 It will be held in Fir Tree Drive Community Centre, Quakers Yard, CF46, and will take place between 5-6PM. The workshop aims to make reading and listening to stories fun, exciting, and educational for primary school pupils; so come along, and have fun! 

(For more information on this scheme, head to our 'Storytelling Project' section at the top of the blog). 

Fantastic feedback- 
We love to hear your feedback, whether it's good or bad. 
Last week we received really positive feedback from Ian Mattey, Curriculum Area Leader for Mathematics and Numeracy in Morriston Comprehensive School and we would love to share the feedback we received with you: 

If you have worked with us, or received our Learning Activity Pack, or Christmas Activity Pack, we would love to hear your views. 

Email us on steampoweredstories.janro@gmail.com today! 

Upcoming Events

We can't wait to head back to Dwr-Y-Felin Comprehensive School on Wednesday 4th February to deliver our Maths Fun Day which will explore how maths is used in everyday situations. We are also in the process of planning to attend local community events; we will keep you up-to-date with what events we will be attending to promote the What you say COUNTS! scheme so you can come and say hello! 

Educational Outreach Programme
Another exciting programme that we cannot wait to administer is our Educational Outreach Programme. The Steam Powered Stories team are working on behalf of Techniquest, offering a range of challenge workshops that are designed to encourage students that study Maths and Science throughout their secondary education. 

We have recently brokered links with four schools in the local area, and a number of the maths and physics workshops have been booked, so if you would like us to come to your school, call Hayley today 0n 01685 872385, or email Hayley at HHowe@janroltd.com. 

If you require any further information about the scheme click the link at the top of the blog!

We are still giving away FREE Learning Activity Packs! 

We are still giving away free Learning Activity Packs that are designed in office by our Training Advisor and Support Staff member, Emily. The packs are filled with activities, and focus on developing your child's maths skills. The packs are sent via email, so you can print off the pack today and your child could be completing the pack tonight! 

To request the pack, simply follow us on @SteamStories, like us on Facebook.com/SteamPoweredStories, and then request our pack by filling in the contact form on the left hand side of the blog, ensure you state that you have liked us on Facebook, and followed us on Twitter to claim your pack. 

Thanks for reading! 
Don't forget to head back to this blog next Wednesday for a new blog post.

FREE Learning Activity Packs

Happy Wednesday! 

How is your January going so far? We hope that the January blues have disappeared and you are enjoying 2015. Today we thought that we would make your January that little bit sweeter with our FREE Learning Activity Pack. 

Our Learning Activity Packs are designed in office by our Training Advisor and Support Staff member, Emily. The packs are filled with various activities that are designed with age and ability in mind, and focus on developing your child's maths skills, as we believe education begins at home. These packs are sent via email, so you can print off the packs today and your child could be completing the pack tonight! 

To request the pack, simply follow us on @SteamStories, like us on Facebook.com/SteamPoweredStories, and then request our pack by filling in the contact form on the left hand side of the blog, ensure you state that you have liked us on Facebook and followed us on Twitter. 

For those that have received our Learning Activity Pack, or our Christmas Activity Pack, we'd love to receive your feedback! Email us at steampoweredstories.janro@gmail.com or by clicking the mail icon on the left hand side of the blog. 

Thanks for reading! 
Don't forget to head back to this blog next Wednesday for a new blog post :) 

Finance for Life workshop

On 9th January, we ran our first workshop of 2015 in Ysgol Maesydderwen, where we administered a Finance for Life workshop for 96 year nine pupils. 

Our Finance for Life workshop aims to prove to students that the maths skills they learn in school are vital to them being employed when they leave school and start searching for jobs. 

The year nine pupils were split up into groups and worked their way around four workshops; each workstation aimed to show pupils how maths is used in everyday life, and in every job role. 

Our first workshop considered payslips. Pupils were taught how to fill in payslips, and how to calculate different wages etc., 

The second workshop was titled ‘Mobile Phone Contracts’, where year nine pupils were given this scenario to consider: 

‘You work part- time job with EE as a Sales Assistant. Your job is to select the correct package for customers. For example: the cheapest one based on their usage (texts and calls.) You have 9 customers and you need to tell them which package is the best for their needs.’  

In groups of six, the pupils had to work out how much each of the four contracts would cost the customer, and which one would be the cheapest. Students worked together and thrived in this task; they learnt how mobile phone contracts work, and how important it was to work out the cheapest deal to save money. Several students were keen to complete the extension task of working out whether it was cheaper to pay more for a mobile at the shop and less on their monthly contract, or vice versa. 

Our third workshop was called 'Shopping Budget', where pupils were given a scenario where they were given a wage and working hours, and had to work out their weekly pay then their tax and National Insurance deductions. In addition to this, pupils also had to calculate how much money  they had to live on after they deducted living costs, hobbies, food costs etc., 

Pupils were then given cards with various foods on with, students had to select what foods they could afford within their budget, which is a skill which we believe is used weekly, if not daily; it is a maths skill that pupils will need to calculate as adults. 

Lastly, pupils worked through our Tax workshop, pupils were asked the question- 

where does your tax really go? In this activity, the pupils were shown an example of a tax break down, and had to debate in groups, if they thought that their tax was correct, and if it was morally correct for their tax to be calculated using certain methods. 

We believe the workshop was very successful, and we thoroughly enjoyed working with Ysgol Maesydderwen pupils to develop their maths skills, and to ultimately prove that maths is needed in everyone's life. We can't wait to work with you all in the future on our other workshops! 

We hope you've enjoyed this blog post. 

Remember you can follow our journey supporting the What you say COUNTS! scheme by following us on Twitter- @SteamStories, and by liking us on Facebook- Facebook.com/SteamPoweredStories. 

Thanks for reading! 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We hope you had a lovely Christmas, and a fantastic new year. 

For those who received our Christmas Activity Packs, we hope your child enjoyed completing the pack, and managed to develop their maths skills as a result. If your child loved or hated our pack, we would appreciate if you could let us know your feedback so we can develop our services. Simply email us and let us know what you and your child thought of our pack, our email address is steampoweredstories.janro@gmail.com

So, 2015 has arrived, and here at Steam Powered Stories, we have a packed schedule of events, workshops, and new and exciting projects to adminsister! Below are some of the workshops we will be running over the next couple of months-

09/01/2015- Finance for Life Workshop in Ysgol Maesydderwen 

16/01/2015- Dragons Den Workshop in Powys PRU 

04/02/2015- Maths Fun Day in Dwr-Y-Felin Comprehensive School 

04/03/2015- Dragons Den Workshop in Ysgol Maesydderwen 

23/03/2015- Peer Mentoring Project in Dwr-Y-Felin Comprehensive School 

27/03/2015- Finance for Life Workshop in Ysgol Dewi Saint 

We also have two new and exciting projects to tell you about- 

1)  Story Telling Project: 

Our Story Telling Project is funded by GwirVol and is a scheme that develops and delivers innovative, engaging, and fun literary workshops for children ages 7-11. The scheme aims to improve literary standards across South Wales, and the project will run throughout Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, and Rhondda Cynon Taff. We will be reporting more on this scheme in the coming months, so stay tuned! 

2) Free Educational Outreach Programme: 

 We are honoured to be working on behalf of Techniquest to deliver their 'Educational Outreach Programme- Let's talk Maths & Physics' in Mid and South West Wales.  

The programme offers a range of challenge workshops that are designed to encourage students studying Maths and Science in secondary education. The workshop activities will include, 'Maths Matters', that comprises of a number of videos that show how maths is used in a real world context, 'Backstage Challenge' where students organise a series of concerts across Wales, and the 'Solving problems with Physics' workshop that focuses on how physics is used in various sectors to solve problems. 

If you would like to work together with us on our Educational Outreach Programme, feel free to contact us today to express your interest and find out how you can get involved. 

We are thoroughly excited to be working on behalf of Techniquest and we cannot wait to get started! 

If you have any questions about our new projects, or just simply want to know more about the What you say COUNTS! scheme, feel free to call Hayley or Emily today on 01685 872385! 

Thanks for reading! 

Steam Powered Stories Newsletter

Happy Wednesday! 

This is the last Steam Powered Stories blog post of 2014, and to say thank you for supporting us in our journey of changing attitudes towards maths so far, we are giving you two early Christmas presents! 

Your first present is our Steam Powered Stories newsletter that we are sending to anyone that requests it. 

The newsletter contains information about the projects we have administered throughout the latter half of 2014, technological advancements, social media developments, and a thanks to all our supporters. 

Below is a sneaky preview of the newsletter that you can request by simply filling in our contact form on the left hand side of the blog, stating that you would like to receive our newsletter. 

Your second present is that we are giving away FREE Christmas Activity Packs and Learning Activity Packs, and all you have to do to receive our pack is like us on Facebook, then tell us in the contact form (on the left hand side of our blog) what pack you would like. 

We are giving away both packs up until 19th December, so if you would like both packs simply let us know in the contact form on the left hand side of the blog. 

Don't forget to let us know in the contact form that you have liked us on Facebook when you request your pack! 

Lastly, we would like to say thanks to all our followers, and our readers that religiously read our blog every Wednesday. 

Your support really means the world to us, and we can't wait to continue changing attitudes towards numeracy with you in 2015. 

Do you want a FREE Christmas Activity Pack?

Christmas is nearly upon us, and today, we are giving away FREE Christmas Activity Packs to keep your children occupied as they count down the days until Santa arrives. 

The pack subsists of various worksheets of maths activities so your child can have fun and still learn. Varying in difficulty, the worksheets will challenge your child, but will also encourage them to strive to be the best they can possibly be. 

If you're child enjoys working through our Christmas pack, you can also request our FREE Learning Activity packs that is filled with maths activities and fun worksheets for your child to complete. 

To request your FREE Christmas Pack, or our Learning Activity Pack today, simply fill in the contact form on the left hand side of the blog. Or if you want to request both the Christmas and Learning Activity packs, let us know when filling in the contact form.

Don't forget to look back over our previous blog posts, especially our '5 ways in which' posts that consider how maths is used in various job roles, and last week's post so you can stay up-to-date with the What you say COUNTS scheme. 

Thanks for reading! 

December Catch Up!

Here at SPS, we can't believe December has arrived. We're only three days in to December and we're already counting down the days until the big day! Are you counting too?

Our post today, titled, 'December Catch Up' is just to sum up what we've been doing in the past couple of weeks, and what is to come for the What you say COUNTS! project. 

Croeserw CEC's Christmas Craft Fayre 

Yesterday, Emily and Hayley attended Croeserw CEC's Christmas Craft Fayre to promote the WYSC scheme, and raise awareness of what we do as an organisation. The day was very successful, and Hayley and Emily thoroughly enjoyed promoting the scheme in the area. 

Developing our services 

We mentioned in an earlier post that we are in the process of working with students of the University of South Wales to develop our services.

 The students have worked closely with us to not only analyse our services to improve them, but they are also in the process of creating and developing new services for us too e.g., creating a maths app, moodle, flash service. 

We are very excited to incorporate the new advancements into our workshops! 

Evaluation results

We posted a few weeks ago about our Finance for Life workshop that we ran in Ysgol Maessyderwen, and today we'd like to share some of the results we received from the pupils that took part. 

As you can see from the table below, 37 pupils claimed that our workshop changed the way they considered maths, with 38 pupils stating that the Finance for Life workshop helped develop their understanding of maths. 

This is exactly what we aimed to achieve. Our workshops strive to change attitudes towards maths, and our ultimate aim is to get 100% positive feedback from students, and we are working hard to attain this result! 

We have more maths workshops booked for 2015 with various schools around Wales, and we can't wait to deliver our services, and change attitudes! 

Have you seen the Education Begins at Home tv advert? 

As you know from our aim, (which is to change attitudes towards maths) we believe that education does begin at home. If a parent states "I can't do maths" in front of their child, their child will begin to adopt the same belief, consequently not being able to achieve the results they deserve in life. 

Below is the Education Begins at Home advert. By clicking the image you can watch the advert now. 

Let us know in the comment box below what you think of the advert! 

If you want to change your child's attitudes towards maths, do it today and request a FREE LEARNING ACTIVITY PACK that is filled with both maths and Christmas work sheets! Simply fill in the contact form on the left hand side of the blog, (remember to state your child's age). 

'5 ways in which' series 

Have you read our previous blog posts that feature 5 ways in which maths is used in various jobs? Below are the links to a few of our '5 ways in which' blog posts so you can strive to attain your dream job! 

Beauty industry- http://steampoweredstories-janro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/5-ways-in-which-maths-is-used-in-beauty.html 

Fashion- http://steampoweredstories-janro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/5-ways-that-maths-is-used-in-fashion.html 

Hairdressing- http://steampoweredstories-janro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/hairdressers-need-maths-too.html 

Sports- http://steampoweredstories-janro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/did-you-know-that-maths-is-used-in-sport.html

Thanks for reading!