Celebrating 2020

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

Celebrate! 

2020 has certainly been a year like no other! It’s brought so many challenges and difficulties for us all, but as we reflect back, there have been some opportunities too. Sheffield CU is built on the belief that learning can take place anywhere, including at home and online too, and our children, families, schools and Learning Destinations have proven just that! 

We have been truly amazed by the resilience, positivity, commitment and kindness shown by the amazing children and young people of our city and our families, schools, partners, Learning Destinations and fellow keyworkers. We feel so proud to have been able to continue to provide what support we could and to roll out a few new developments of our own too. We look forward to 2021 and hopefully welcoming and celebrating the commitment and achievements of our amazing CU members at one of our real life award ceremonies as soon as possible!

In the meantime, here’s our Sheffield CU year in numbers…

• 46,159 children and young people with CU credits in Sheffield
• 3,536,887 CU credits awarded so far – with over 200,000 hours added in 2020
• 2,862 out of school activities registered with us in 2020 (and counting!). This is actually more than last year’s figure, and clearly demonstrates the commitment to learning shown by Sheffield children and young people, even when at home and taking part in home learning challenges!
• 64 schools signed up and engaged with Sheffield Children’s University
• 236 Learning Destinations (approved activity providers) participating across Sheffield. 25 brand new Learning Destinations have been added in 2020 with many activity providers adapting their delivery and working in new innovative COVID secure ways!
• 2,000 Gold awards, 3,000 Silver & 3,700 Bronze awards have been issued during 2020. There have been an amazing 93,000 CU Awards issued since 2008 proving just how talented and committed Sheffield children, young people and families are to their out of school learning!  
• 3 brand new virtual ceremony experiences were rolled out to our award winners who couldn’t attend a real life ceremony due to lockdown and COVID restrictions. Children and young people were invited to take part in a new ‘Create your own CU ceremony’ home learning challenge and then watch a Sheffield CU virtual ceremony video. The home learning challenge encouraged our award winners people to invite their families to celebrate with them, make special refreshments to enjoy, create their own stage, and make their mortarboard to throw, whilst the ceremonies were full of special speeches from VIPs such as the Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis, children’s author David Walliams and HM Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire Andrew Coombe. It also had special performances from schools, Sheffield Music Hub and experiments, activities and a specially written poem too. Follow the link here to see the video we created to celebrate our first ever virtual ceremony and our award winners achievements: https://youtu.be/db57y8RdB_k
• Over 100 Sheffield CU home learning challenges were created by the team and published daily from March 2020 to provide support to children, young people, families and schools during this extraordinary time. Challenges included creating their own obstacle course, making memory maps, garden bug hunts, creating their own comic book, learning sign language, doing superhero yoga, making their own cook book, creating a museum at home, writing poetry and many, many more! Check out our celebratory video created back in June: https://youtu.be/UBFJVAFjjS8
• 10 Learning Destinations delivered 68 free taster sessions as part of the 6th annual Sheffield CU Festival of Fun in the summer holidays. Collectively, they offered over 1,800 bookable places for children and families (many more required no booking at all!) to participate in activities from dance, drama and music, to gaming, arts and crafts and outdoor learning.  While many of the activities were online or remote learning, some were delivered in 'real life' in a Covid-secure way such as guided walks and trails.
• 29 schools are taking part in our 2020 Year of the Nurse Project in a Box to help inspire our children and young people to become the nurses of the future! We have been working with the Clinical Educator for Weston Park Hospital, Cherie Rushton, to develop this year’s project and sessions include exploring the history of nursing as well as challenging stereotypes of nursing as a career. The children who take part will also learn about the body, what happens when things go wrong (for example with allergies) and see what life is like through the eyes of a nurse working on a ward, in a clinic and in the community. There is even an opportunity for the children to learn some basic first aid too. The project will also include supplementary resources with colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University, to help give children an insight into studying nursing as a career, as well as forming a link between the school pupils and current and alumni nursing students.
• 1 ‘Sheffield CU – How does it make a difference?’ report was published, which provides detailed evidence of the impact of Children’s University in Sheffield. This built on our previous reports and included in-depth analysis of the positive impact of participation in CU activities on attainment, attendance and progress, as well as anecdotal evidence of impact through a number of case studies.  
• 8 essential life skills defined by Skills Builder (such as leadership, creativity, problem solving and listening) that children and young people develop by taking part in CU activities are now being identified by schools and Learning Destinations and tracked by our Sheffield CU database. These skills have been recognised as those that everyone needs to help them succeed in education and life as well as almost any job so being able to develop and provide evidence of them through Children's University will support children and young people succeed in their future employment too. CU schools also now receive brand new monthly home learning challenges focused on developing each of the 8 essential skills which are shared regularly with children and families.
• 10 activities were funded through the Sheffield CU Acorn Fund which enables children and young people to bid for funds to develop, sustain or re-invigorate a CU activity in school. Activities funded in this round included a baking club, table tennis, arts and crafts, switch club, rock art, board game club and bee club.
• 2 South Yorkshire CU network meetings, which brought together existing CU centres in Sheffield and Doncaster as well as the brand new CU centre in Rotherham for the first time took place this year. This work, funded by the Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis, and led by Katie and Helen through Sheffield Hallam University aims to create a brand new regional CU partnership to create even more opportunities for the children and families of South Yorkshire. Watch this space for more developments in 2021!
• And a partridge in a pear treeeee! 

Finally, we want to take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to you, along with all our colleagues, schools, Learning Destinations and partners for continuing to support our work and ensuring the children and young people of our wonderful city are celebrated and rewarded for their achievements, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

We really hope you enjoy the festive season, have a restful break and look forward to seeing you in the new year. 

Merry Christmas!

Katie, Helen, Sakina, Laura and Amy

The Sheffield CU Team