Guest post by Katie Hamshaw, Sheffield Children’s University
Sheffield Children’s University (CU) is part of a national initiative that encourages and celebrates children and young people who take part in a wide range of inspiring learning opportunities outside of school hours.
Since Children’s University arrived in Sheffield, a growing number of children and young people from across the city have been taking part in a wide range of exciting and fun learning activities out of school time. These activities have taken place in and around school, or in the community at ‘Learning Destinations’ across the city and every single hour has been recorded, awarded, and celebrated by Sheffield Children’s University.
That’s because we feel it’s really important to add value to existing activities and reward and celebrate children and young people for choosing to learn in their own time. Not only does it increase their confidence, self-esteem and motivation, it has a real impact on their learning. Extensive local and national research shows a clear link between participation in CU activities and increased attendance and achievement at school. Children and young people who take part in CU activities not only do better in school than non CU students, they also do better than they were expected to.
There are a whopping 37,000 children and young people with CU credits! We currently have 70 schools subscribed to CU and over 200 Learning Destinations! We have hosted 54 special Award Ceremonies and presented over 10,000 Gold Award winners (100, 200, 300 hours etc.) and 50,000+ Bronze and Silver Awards. There are 15,000 Passports to Learning in circulation too!
We love to celebrate here at Sheffield CU so we couldn’t wait to roll out the red carpet and host two very special Spring award ceremonies at Sheffield Hallam University earlier in March. With over 400 children invited to attend to receive their Gold Awards for 100 hours of learning in their own time (or more!) along with their families and school staff, we knew they would be an event to remember!
The ceremonies were extra special this time too, as we were celebrating a very significant milestone. Children and young people in Sheffield have clocked up over 2 MILLION HOURS of learning in their own time. That’s over 228 years of activities! We achieved our 1 million hours nearly 3 years ago after 6 years of CU in Sheffield, so to clock up the next million so quickly is absolutely amazing, and testament to the commitment to learning demonstrated by all our fantastic members. To commemorate this extraordinary achievement, we presented a special certificate to Georgia Taylor from Southey Green Primary on behalf of the children and young people of Sheffield.
Children from over 50 primary schools across the city were invited to receive their Awards at these ceremonies which were presented by the Deputy Lord Mayor, Councillor Anne Murphy, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, Professor Chris Husbands, Councillor Jackie Drayton, Cabinet for Children, Young People and Families and Carol Castle, Head of UK Student Recruitment at the University. There was also an inspirational speech from Chris Brailsford, our Sheffield CU Patron who encouraged children to spot the future gas engineer, doctor and football amongst them!
There were also a number of special performances from our Learning Destinations including Stagecoach Rotherham, Noodle Performance Arts and Stepz Dance Academy.
We are thrilled to work in partnership with the Outreach team to host the award ceremonies at Sheffield Hallam, and provide University style caps and gowns for all our award winners. We are also very proud to work alongside Hallam student and parent ambassadors to ensure that our children and families have an inspiring experience and are made to feel special! In recent years, our partnership work has developed and grown and now extends beyond these events to other areas of our work. This includes sponsorship of our Acorn Fund grants to schools which are awarded to children and young people to develop a CU activity in their school and our summer Festival of Fun programme. We really hope to continue to strengthen our relationship and work with the Outreach team in order to create even more opportunities for the children and young people who are part of Sheffield CU as well as offer invaluable opportunities for them and their families to engage with the University.
For more information about the Children’s University and how to get involved visit:
