Meteor joins Harry Potter at the University

Almost 500 Middlesbrough primary school children will get a taste of University life next week, from Monday 28 January to Friday 1 February, when they visit the University of Teesside as part of the exciting Meteor scheme.

The Meteor programme, funded by the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), aims to raise the aspirations of young people - some as young as ten years old - and get them to start thinking about further and higher education. This year, there will a Harry Potter flavour to the events on campus.

The taster days will give the children a chance to sample a range of activities on the campus - including workshops on how to compose music on a computer. The musical theme continues with the children also sampling student social life by taking part in a disco at the end of each half-day session.

Wendy Bell, who manages the Meteor Primary programme, said: “There will be a introduction at 9.30am and 12.45pm each day next week for the children joining the Meteor scheme and we have added a few new ideas, including Harry Potter theme characters to begin the sessions. Other new ideas include the Origami workshops, a Sport's Science activity which investigates co-ordination and reaction times, and a Magic Maths session. Everyone is really looking forward to welcoming the ten and eleven year-olds to the campus. The children have already got to know our student mentors, who work with them on a weekly basis; and in June, we will be holding our Meteor Summer School, when children from the different schools will mix together and enjoy a wide range of social and educational activities on campus. There will also be a mini ‘graduation-type’ ceremony at the end of the two week Summer School to celebrate the children's achievements in June.”

The University launched the pioneering programme in 1999, with 300 Year Six (10 and 11 year-olds) from six central Middlesbrough primary schools: Sacred Heart RC, Newport, Ayresome, Abingdon, St Joseph’s RC and Breckon Hill. Another five schools in East Middlesbrough have since joined Meteor - Brambles, North Ormesby, Thorntree, Caldicotes and St Alphonsus RC.

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