Pompey Stars (ages 9-12 year olds) and Pompey Rockets (ages 6-8 year olds) aims to help Portsmouth children find out about themselves and to help them learn in fun situations. We encourage them to learn new skills, make new friends from other schools and experience new learning environments. Our enthusiasm will help them develop a love of learning, extend their horizons and their life aspirations.
We offer over 1000 places on courses to children across the city every term. Our aim is to find the very best in new and exciting activities for children to come and try. Courses are as varied as possible to really challenge and engage different personalities. We also offer some after-school clubs and occasionally themed one day specials.
The Pompey Stars Project Team is made up of Jo Valentine- Project Manager (full-time), Fiona Bristow-Finance Administrator (part- time), Martine Eneas-Project Administrator (part-time) and Jane Isaac-Project Assistant (full-time). The project staff are only in the office during school term time.
The project was started as Portsmouth Children's University (PCU) in May 2002 in response to the need for more out-of-hours learning opportunities. Sarah Kite was appointed as director and two schools were set up as venue schools. Ten courses were run over 4 Saturday mornings and were offered to year 4, 5 and 6 pupils.
By the Autumn Term of 2002 three more schools became venues and 23 courses were offered at five schools, including 6 Portsmouth Kids’ College courses (PKC) for Years 2 and 3. Places were offered to 16 schools in the city centre of Portsmouth and Paulsgrove. The project stayed with those schools, only offering to other schools if there was a low take-up. Trips were organised to Fort Nelson and Queen Elizabeth Country Park and Gunwharf Carnival workshops held in the Easter holidays were a great success.
We started to target different groups of pupils by offering them specific courses, such as regularly held swimming courses for children who need support in becoming independent swimmers (i.e. to KS2 level). Partnerships developed with the Gifted and Talented team and many masterclass courses were offered to Excellence Cluster schools. We also started working with “Looked After Children” all of whom were individually invited and supported to attend our courses.
In Spring 2006 extra funding was secured so that the project could be offered to the whole of the city. Working in Partnership with the newly formed Community Improvement Partnerships the PCU programme has been rolled out to all primary schools and offered to year 7 pupils in venue schools. This is a very exciting development for the PCU and many new schools have been set up as venues. Fruitful partnerships have been set up with the City Museums, Portsmouth Football Club, The University of Portsmouth, the Blue Reef Aquarium, the New Theatre Royal, the Kings Theatre, the Police, and HM Dockyard.
In April 2009, the project left the National Children's University and re-branded as Pompey Stars. To date over 6000 children have been to Pompey Stars courses totalling a staggering 160,000 hours of additional learning.