Celebrate!

The festive season is upon us and the year is drawing to a close, and there is only one thing to do. Celebrate!!!

Our most recent awards ceremony took place in November and a staggering 125 children from 20 primary schools across the city received an award for taking part in at least 100 hours of out of school activities in their own time. It was a brilliant event, and an inspirational speech was given by our fantastic Chancellor Eliot Kennedy - who then gave us a special mention on BBC Breakfast the next day! There were also speeches by the Lord Mayor, Councillor John Campbell, and 2 pupils from Stradbroke Primary School spoke about what CU means to them. It was also the unveiling of our CU Souvenirs stall including special awards certificate folders, water bottles, bags, pencils and lanyards for awards badges! All items were really popular - so make sure you grab your Sheffield CU water bottle whilst you can!

We also recently presented our portfolio at a Quality in Study Support recognition panel along with Wakefield CU, Peterborough CU, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CU, York CU and Middlesborough CU. We were very proud to receive the news that we have been awarded the 'Established' Level, which evidences that we offer a quality service that has a measurable impact on the children and young people who take part! We received fantastic feedback from our colleagues, who were very supportive and gave lovely comments about the service we provide. 


Other highlights this year include:

• Nearly 18,000 children and young people are registered with CU, and have collectively gained 614, 417 credits in total so far. The highest achiever currently had over 850 hours!

• During 2012, Sheffield CU have given out over 2000 Bronze Awards, 1180 Silver Awards and 500 Gold Awards. 

• There are currently 50 schools subscribed to Sheffield Children’s University. New additions include: Whiteways Primary School, Birley Community Primary School, Westfield School, and Sheffield Park Academy. Dore Primary School and Manor Lodge Primary School have also rejoined CU.

• Preliminary data has arrived for the last academic year, which looks at CU participation and attainment in both KS2 SATs and GCSEs. This data looks very positive and seems to follow the previous trend showing a clear link between participation in CU activities and attainment. Also, utilising FFT estimates, figures indicate that children and young people who take part in CU activities do better than they were previously estimated. Further analysis of the data will take place in the coming months and the report will be ready in the new year. 

• 30 schools have been received special Rocket Science resource boxes which enables them to deliver a series of Rocket based activities in an out of school club. The end result is the design and creation of a water powered rocket which will be launched at a special event in April at Don Valley Stadium!

• Using the Passport to Learning, children and young people have clocked up over 100,000 hours this year, by visiting over 80 Learning Destinations across the city such as museums, libraries, Heeley City Farm, brownies/scouts and local dance, drama, music and martial arts groups.  

• Eliot Kennedy has been appointed our Sheffield CU chancellor and has been very well received by school staff, parents/carers, and children and young people at our recent awards ceremonies, where he gave very inspirational speeches. Eliot is a highly successful music producer and songwriter, based in Sheffield and works with musicians and bands such as Take That, Spice Girls, and The Wanted to name a few! 

• As part of the Off the Shelf festival of words, Sheffield CU enabled over 200 children, young people and their families to create stories using the toss of a dice with Imagination Gaming and solve the mystery at the crime science with Sherlock Bone during the October half term holidays. 

• Working in partnership with the Looked After Children team, Children's Residential Service and Fostering team, all looked after children in the city have received a free Passport to Learning to enable them to become involved in out of school activities and be rewarded for their participation.

And we are sure there will be lots more to celebrate in 2013! Watch this space for news about our 'February Freebie' and 'Sheffield CU Live' soon!

We want to take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to all our colleagues, schools, Learning Destinations, partners, parents/carers for supporting our work and ensuring the children and young people of our wonderful city are celebrated and rewarded for their achievements. We hope you enjoy the festive season, and look forward to seeing you in the new year. 

Merry Christmas!