CU LIVE! Young Curators Project

Sheffield Children’s University in conjunction with Museums Sheffield have created The Young Curators Project as part of their CU LIVE! programme. This exciting FREE new project is for primary school aged children from Y4, 5, or 6 with a CU Passport to Learning to experience what it means to be a curator in a museum.

Over a two day course children will be able to:

• Understand what a curator does in a museum
• Curate a special personal belonging
• Understand how to handle and display objects
• Be able to talk about and correctly label artefacts and specimens
• 
  

The Young Curator project will be running in the Easter holidays over two days

• When: Easter holidays (Wednesday 16th April AND Wednesday 23rd April 2014), from 10am until 3pm each day.
• Where: At Weston Park Museum
• Additional information: Children are expected to attend on BOTH days to complete this ‘Introduction to Curating’ course. Children will be provided with a certificate and badge for successfully completing the course and they will also earn Children’s University credits for taking part.
• Bring: An object which is special to you (this could be a toy, a photograph, a present, etc.) and don’t forget your Children’s University Passport to Learning
• Lunch: Please bring your own packed lunch

Places are limited to 15 children. Booking is required and will work on a first come, first served basis. There is no charge for this event. Children will be able to gain CU credits towards certificates for taking part in this activity

Please contact Museums Sheffield to book a place on this two day experience at on 0114 2782655 or email learning@museums-sheffield.org.uk
For further details contact graham.moore@museums-sheffield.org.uk

Note: On booking parents/carers will need to provide name and age of pupil, school attended and a parent/carer’s contact phone number. They will also need to provide the child’s Passport to Learning number (found below the consent sticker in the front). These courses are jointly funded by Museums Sheffield and Sheffield Children’s University.

Celebrating our 'Silver' Ceremony!

Our 25th Gold Awards Ceremony  took place on Wednesday 19th March with over 200 children, parents and carers and school staff descending on the Town Hall to celebrate in style.

Children from Lydgate Junior School receive their awards

Children from 15 schools attended along with their parents and carers and were presented with their awards by the Deputy Lord Mayor, Councillor Peter Rippon. There was even a special appearance from our Chancellor, Eliot Kennedy who sent a special video from Times Square in New York! 

There was also a marketplace where some of our fantastic Learning Destinations displayed information about their activities and involved parents/carers, children and even in the Lord Mayor in some demonstrations!

During the ceremony, there were some fantastic performances from Razzamataz Intermediate Students, and a special video from Watercliffe Meadow Primary School who showcased their fantastic Parkour Club. Malin Bridge also kicked off the ceremony with their amazing choir of 50 children, who sang 4 fantastic songs that they had been practicing at their after-school club.

Malin Bridge Choir showcase what they have been learning at after-school club

Proud Malin Bridge school staff applaud their choir!

Tempest Photography were also on hand to take portrait photos of children and their familes in their caps and gowns, and our CU Souvenirs superstars Sakina and Leah were very busy making sure awards badges were securely fastened to newly purchased CU lanyards!

HUGE congratulations to our fantastic award winners, their parents/carers and school staff. We are so very very proud of all of you! A special thanks too to our spectacular events team - Dee, Leah, and Sakina. We couldn't do it without you!

Children from Stradbroke Primary receive their awards

Visit our Facebook page to view all the photos from the event! www.facebook.com/sheffieldcu

Calling all Sheffield Learning Destinations...

Our next Passport Award Ceremony will take place in May and to make sure we can award as many children and young people as possible, we need ALL Learning Destination registers ASAP! 

The deadline for registers is Friday 28th March so if you are a parent/carer and your child attends an activity at a Learning Destination, please encourage the leader of the activity to send in registers as soon as possible so we can add your credits in.

 If you are a Learning Destination, please please PLEASE send your registers in by the end of next week to ensure they can be counted. Remember you can drop your registers at any local library to be put in the internal post to us!

Huge thanks to all those who have already sent in their registers, our team is busy putting them into our database and look forward to inviting lots of award winners to our ceremony soon!

Celebrate!

Our 24th Gold Awards Ceremony (thats right, 24 since CU began in Sheffield!) took place on Wednesday 13th March with over 200 children, parents and carers and school staff descending on the Town Hall to celebrate in style.

Pupils from Angram Bank Primary School receive their Gold Awards

Children from 15 schools attended along with their parents and carers and were presented with their awards by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Vickie Priestley, and the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families, Councillor Jackie Drayton. There was also a marketplace where some of our fantastic Learning Destinations displayed information about their activities and involved parents/carers, children and even in the Lord Mayor in some demonstrations!

DS Taekwondo and Greentop Circus practice their juggling!

During the ceremony, there were some fantastic performances from Razzamataz Junior Students, and a special video from Watercliffe Meadow Primary School who showcased their fantastic Parkour Club.

Razzamataz Junior Students showcase what they have been learning this term

Tempest Photography were also on hand to take portrait photos of children and their familes in their caps and gowns, and our CU Souvenirs superstars Sakina and Leah were very busy making sure awards badges were securely fastened to newly purchased CU lanyards!

HUGE congratulations to our fantastic award winners, their parents/carers and school staff. We are so very very proud of all of you! A special thanks too to our spectacular events team - Zoe, Leah, and Sakina. We couldn't do it without you!

Visit our Facebook page to view all the photos from the event! www.facebook.com/sheffieldcu

Our lovely helper Zoe is ready with our special CU caps and gowns!

What the CU team did next...

Phew, what a busy few weeks its been so far at Sheffield CU HQ! 

We are just finishing some case studies which evidence the impact of Children's University in our city. These have been completed by our lovely colleague Mark with the help of some our fantastic Learning Destinations Greentop Circus and Razzamataz Theatre Schools Sheffield and Malin Bridge and Watercliffe Meadow Primary Schools. These will be published shortly so look out!

Our brand new logobugs and wristbands arrived and will be available to purchase at our CU Souvenir stall and we have brand new banners that feature one of our fantastic award winners from Carterknowle Junior School.

We have been working hard on completing our Quality in Study Support Advanced portfolio which evidences that Sheffield CU delivers quality provision that makes a real difference to the children and young people of our city. If we are successful at our panel in June, we will be the one of only 2 CU's across with country with Advanced status, and the only setting in Yorkshire! 

We have also been involved in the planning of the Commonwealth Games baton relay and have been busy forging links with Sheffield International Venues so our children and young people can collect credits with the Passport to Learning for attending activities. 

10 groups of students from our CU schools put together successful bids to the Acorn Fund and were awarded with the funds requested to develop and deliver their own CU activities in school. We have validated 4 Learning Destinations, received 3 new applications to become Learning Destinations, recruited 2 new schools, and are very VERY nearly at 1,000,000 hours of CU learning!

All this and tonight is the first of our primary awards ceremonies, so we are rolling out the red carpet yet again! Over 200 award winners from nearly 30 schools will be presented with Gold Awards in the next few weeks. We look forward to seeing award winners, parents/carers and schools staff at our ceremonies and celebrating all their hard work!

Fantastic February Freebie 2014!

Wow, what a week! February Freebie 2014 was a big hit in many ways!

Our launch event, the first ever Sheffield Day of Games, attracted large numbers of game players both young and not-so-young.

Designed to get more people into playing games, the event certainly did that, with a large number of players having a go for the first time. A range of different games was on offer, run by staff from gaming stores from across Sheffield who were very busy all day. Organiser Nigel Scarfe from Imagination Gaming was clearly pleased with how the day went, especially the number of young people playing together with members of their family. One parent/carer commented ‘Had a brilliant day, my boys are hooked and so am I! Games covered a variety of types and were sourced from all over the world! We hope to be able to run another event like this so in the meantime, get gaming and get ready to challenge your opponents next year!

Our other activities went with a bang too – from the drums of Concord All Stars to the wacky experiments of Science Party-les! All 30+ events were well attended and not only raised the profile of Sheffield CU but also provided much-needed activities to keep children and young people excited and engaged in learning throughout the school holidays.

Camp fire fun with Wild Wood Activities in Roe Wood

Adventures in the park with Adventures Are Us

Sheffield CU take over a shop unit for the holidays at Crystal Peaks!

Razzamataz raise the roof in Central Library!

Some fantastic dance and drama activities were put on, some very creative pieces of art work were on display, and some very energetic self-defence moves and juggling and plate-spinning executed throughout the week! Not content with activities indoors, a huge number of children and young people challenged themselves to brave the cool February weather to have a go at woodland activities including den building and cooking pancakes on a camp fire, and even climbing rope ladders high up into trees before zip-wiring down to the ground!

A HUGE thank you to all our Learning Destinations who put on such a brilliant range of high quality, engaging, fun and exciting activities throughout the week! Thank you to our lovely Helen too, who with the aid of her very large map, worked very closely with our Learning Destinations to ensure there was a wide range of activities across our city.

Look out for more fantastic activities in the Easter holidays - our Passport to Learning Activity newsletter will be available soon!