Latest News
News and Updates from the CU team
-
Welcome back with some April Updates
Mon 19 Apr 2021A warm welcome back to school to everyone. We are really looking forward to celebrating with you all as we approach the end of term and have lots of great opportunities available to help make the next few months lots of fun.
Our recent holiday project was a great success with 40% of participants being new to our holiday offerings.
We took part in urban bug-hunts, pond dipping and nature trails. Next holiday we have 15 spaces available to partner schools running throughout the May/June Holiday.
Let us know if you have any young KS2 environmentalists who'd like to join.
We have been working with City Hall to source hard copies of London Trails for you to get out exploring and learning about our amazing city.
We will be running some ourselves which will be available for you to join in July if you do not feel confident in running your own.
If you haven't already expressed an interest please let us know if you'd like to take part.
As usual, in conjunction with our fun days, we are launching our annual raffle and opening it up to partner schools.
Prizes include but are not exclusive to: Hot air balloon ride for 2,Signed children's books, Formula One goodies, Slime kits, Afternoon tea and Amazon vouchers.
Coordinators can order blocks £1 tickets and then sell them on in their schools ,we will collect all tickets for the filmed draw and post the video result on 19th July.
Graduations are coming!
We have pre booked your celebration events so now we just need to check the hours and get everything allocated.
We have you all online now and have pre-allocated estimated hours for you.
Don't forget to use check sheets and passports to add on any additional hours you feel students are due.
-
April Holiday Update
Tue 30 Mar 2021Hello all of you from us at WCU,
Here we are at the holidays, we hope you enjoy our holiday offer and cannot wait to see what you all come up with in response to it.
Get Writing
We are getting ready to publish our first edition of our own WCU Magazine.
So if you have ever thought about writing and getting your name in print, now is the perfect time.
Write your own thoughts, advice or reflections on Wellbeing, Lock-down or Social Action and share with us via your school coordinator.
We will be collecting submissions up until June so we are really looking forward to reading your entries and seeing them in print.
Loved-Before
We have recently partnered with Loved Before. They are a great project all about rehoming pre-loved bears and toys. Each toy sent to Loved Before has their own pre-loved story and is given up for adoption so they can be loved again. We think this is a great way of saving our lovely furry pals from going to waste!
We'd like you to draw your best furry pal and tell us their story -A picture or drawing of you and them would be great! We will put all entries on our WCU site and there will be prizes for the winners.
You can also collect and donate your own bears for rehousing via your school coordinator so let us know if you are interested in this also.
TFL Craft Club
How about some art and local walk during the holidays? TFL have a whole range of walks and activities for you to do. TFL have teamed up with their friends at the conservation organisation, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and walking app Go (Jauntlyhttps://www.gojauntly.com/walks-near-me), to bring you their TfL Craft Club nature special. There is also their “Explore London blog” for the full pack and highlights including walking tips and challenges, word search fun, how to build a bird feeder, a bug hotel and a guided mindful walk too. You can access the holiday pack at https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/tfl/.
Canal Cavalcade Digital Art Project
Are you a budding artist?
Our friends at the Canal and Waterways Association are looking for submissions of artwork to digitally share during the May Cavalcade.
Your work can be in any medium or even digitally produced.
The theme for submission is -Our wonderful waterways-London's Canals.
Future Solutions Design Project
Have you got a great idea for improving technology in the future? If so this competition is for you! We are looking for students who can design and explain their ideas for the future using technology to improve our world. There will prizes of Renault Formula One Caps and bags for students in each participating school.
For inspiration there are entries already online at https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/future-solutions/.
Get Exploring Online
There is a full range of information available from us online You will see in our tabs there is access to: news, dates, updates about us, partner school profiles, partner details and in the for Parents and Children Tab everything you will need to take part in a wide range of online projects.
You can find us at https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk
There is a wealth of information and activity to access and take part in.
All of it is completely free of charge and without the need to register, login in or commit.
If you were a Unicorn…
We love creativity and fantasy creatures at WCU, thanks to our partners we have some great unicorn themed prizes to give away.
Simply draw yourself as a unicorn on A4 paper or card and submit to your WCU coordinator. What about the design makes your Unicorn unique and all about you?
We will select an overall winner to receive our Unicorn themed goody bundle. We will announce winners in June. You can see entries for inspiration at https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/art-fun/
Start Journaling
Big Life Journal offers science-based journals for kids to help them grow their confidence and resilience. They've created growth mind-set journals and bundles for different ages, from young children to teens. Big Life journals feature engaging activities, inspiring stories, and colourful illustrations meant to wire kids' brains for resilience, gratitude, and self-love.
Go over to https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/big-life-journal/ to get started.
RAK Challenge
Take action and carry out a random act of kindness for someone else. Research shows that helping others can be beneficial to our own mental health. It can reduce stress, improve our emotional wellbeing and even benefit our physical health .You can share back what you’ve done through your coordinator and we will share it in our next newsletter. There are resources and ideas available with us at https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/rak/
Good for the body. Kindness has been shown to increase self-esteem, empathy and compassion, and improve mood. ... Kindness can increase your sense of connectivity with others, which can directly impact loneliness, improve low mood and enhance relationships in general. It also can be contagious.
A Quick Update
We have scheduled weekly check-in sessions for any needs or admin as they arise and monthly leads' meetings, to plan directly with us what you would like to see and do with us at WCU. These zoom meets will commence in May and we are looking forward to negotiating the best time for you to access this additional support.
We will coordinate access to well-being and support structures initiated by ourselves and partners.
We have additional resources available to educators and opportunities for individual schools to access online streaming.
We hope you find these resources of interest and have many more waiting for you!
Coming Soon
We are currently sourcing activities and resources to make your graduations a real celebration of your achievements this year. We will deliver these in person, on the day of your choosing.
Additionally, we have coordinated a choice between onsite and alternative venue options, ensuring we can deliver consistently and safely regardless of each schools' needs and preferences.
There will be Boxing and CBT sessions for schools with 1-2 classes graduating. Circus Skill days for larger Cohorts. Attendance at our fun day for our most local partners will be available too.
You can always connect with WCU Manager, Stella Wilson for
further details email: swilson@queensparkschool.co.uk,
-
April is here!
Mon 29 Mar 2021How joyful for us to be back out in the community last week and to visit Paddington Central and our friends at British Land. We are working with them to promote social action and community gardening with the Foursquare Farms. It was so enjoyable to get out together and walk along the local waterways again, we were so hyped to be out together doing our projects again. Obviously, we had to have a much smaller group and we couldn’t use public transport but part of the beauty of where we are means that we can travel lots of places by foot.
Many of us will be coming together during the holidays to safely take part in some exciting new projects involving forest school, cycling proficiency, arts awards and mentoring. We are looking forward to making sure the children from other schools can take part with us in the future and can’t wait to see what the next holiday will bring.
Hannah and I have been super-hyped to be launching our very own bug hang out where we wish to promote and celebrate the joy of keeping invertebrates. Our first big un-boxing happened and we have made the video for that which we will be having online for you very soon. You can check out some of our fan-art that is already in place here on the WCU site and we are looking forward to much more coming our way so that we can share it together! We have promised a handling video next so look out for that in the near future.
We love to have a competition at Westminster Children’s University and there are currently two open for students to take part in. We would like you to design a unicorn that sums you up as a person; if you were a unicorn what would you look like? We can’t wait to see what you come up. Also we are inviting students to come up with innovations for the future; can you think of something that would use technology to make the future a little bit better for everybody else? Maybe you want to protect something that’s endangered or perhaps a new way of fuelling cars? Whatever you think would be the best way of moving forward, we would love to hear your ideas. There will be prizes for the best entries in both cases and we are really looking forward to making more videos of your work so that we can put it online for you all to share.
Next term we are going to be putting on an art exhibition of our very own and we would like donations of art from all of you guys, so please get creating! You can pick your own theme and you your own media as we are happy for you to express yourself in whichever way suits you best. We all are really looking forward to what you come up with as are our friends at Paddington Central who are kindly going to give us access to exhibition space .We are hoping to have a launch-night type event as well which will be amazing fun for you and your parents and a great way of us all getting together.Another way you might like to contribute is to write together another way you might like to contribute to a larger public project is to write a submission for our WCU Wellbeing magazine which we are going to publish before the end of term. We are looking for poetry, well-being and health advice and reflections from you guys to share amongst the wider community.
We would like to shout out the young film-makers who won the Bank of England Covid-Film-project, congratulations to you and your great director/producer Miss C. That’s not all, a second film is already underway, can’t wait to see it!
-
Weekly News
Mon 08 Mar 2021WCU NEWS
Inspiring and supporting our young
people
Keep in touch with all WCU projects
Welcome to the WCU Newsletter
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2021! Here you will find out about all the new and exciting things that WCU is offering. Also, there are fun activities for children to do on their own or as a family. If you are from Queens Park School you can visit our WCU google classroom, https://classroom.google.com/h Here you will find an amazing selection of activities, quizzes and learning materials. These activities are also available on the WCU website,
https://www.westminsterchildrensuniversity.co.uk/. We have also started our own online ebay where you can pick up all sorts of bargains from £1-£10. This site is not to make money we simply want to share new and used toys, clothes, bags and shoes in our local community. Visit Bring Dem on http://www.bringdem.com
Year 4 win Bank of England Film Competition Congratulations to all Year 4 for their hard work and creativity. The Bank of England film competition is open to all English schools and this year's theme was about the changes Covid 19 has made to working life.
The judges said of Year 4's entry that they "enjoyed watching your entry and were impressed by the students' filmmaking skills. The fact that your students produced such a first-rate film is a great credit to them and they should feel very proud of their
achievement." The students won a small money prize which will go towards an item they want for class collectively. Well done Year 4!
Wonderful Wind Chimes!
1. Choose your materials and decide what will form the base of your hanging structure before you begin. Then decide how you will arrange your ‘noisy’ items. 2. Cut string to different lengths to attach your noisy items. Make sure they will bump into each other to make noise.
3. Attach your items to the string. For copper pipes and cutlery, just attach one item. For keys or shells, attach them in a series, knotting each one to keep it in place. 4. Repeat several more times, spreading the threads evenly around the base. Make a loop of string to hang the wind chime from a tree or arch where it will catch the breeze. 5. Ensure it is above head height so no one will walk into it.
Selection of items to make interesting sounds such as; Metal objects: copper pipe, keys, cutlery or natural objects: shells, short lengths of bamboo
Create a dinosaur herb garden
You will need
Dinosaur figures, Wine crate, Children’s non-toxic paint, Paint brush, Permanent black marker Compost, Parsley plant, Sage plant, Thyme plant, Strawberry plant, Watering can. How to do it: Stencil the name of your child onto the crate to make the garden extra-special for them. Place a layer of compost in the bottom of the crate, then plant the herbs and strawberry plant. Add more compost around them, then firm down lightly and water well. Paint the dinosaurs different colours and leave them to dry on a sheet of newspaper. Once they are completely dry, write down the name of each plant on each dinosaur, in marker pen. Position each dinosaur next to its plant. Then place the container in a bright spot and water it daily. Pick the herbs with your children. -
If you were a unicorn
Wed 03 Mar 2021
-
Bug club is coming
Wed 03 Mar 2021
-
March Activities
Wed 03 Mar 2021We have been working away to create a bank of new opportunities and online resources for you and your students ,ready for remote and physical delivery as soon as you are able. We know that many schools and extra-curricular organisations, such as us, have been quickly adapting their delivery to take into account closures and restrictions due to coronavirus.
We have been working hard to support educators to continue to engage with children, young people and their families during this difficult time, uploading content on our website and scheduling physical and streamed outreach, ready for the return to school. Our hope is that you will always have plenty of exciting things to do, even if you are not in school or experiencing restricted travel and operations at the moment.
Here are our March 2021 update highlights.Coordinators Zoom meetings each fortnight
We have scheduled weekly check-in sessions for any needs or admin as they arise and monthly leads' meetings, to plan directly with us what you would like to see and do with us at WCU. These zoom meets will commence in March and we are looking forward to negotiating the best time for you to access this additional support. We will coordinate access to well-being and support structures initiated by ourselves and partners.
Graduations
We are currently sourcing activities and resources to make your graduations a real celebration of your achievements this year. We will deliver these in person, on the day of your choosing. Additionally, we have coordinated a choice between onsite and alternative venue options, ensuring we can deliver consistently and safely regardless of each schools' needs and preferences.
SCS and HS2
We have been negotiating outreach from SCS and HS2 for you to engage with such as the what is engineering? Module.
This interactive module will provide an overview of what an Engineer is, the different types of engineers is terms of specialism and what types of engineer’s we have on SCS railways. The idea is to help change the current perception on engineers within the industry and provide a true reflection on the diversity of engineers we have on our project.
This module involves a drawing exercise.
This material will be aimed primarily at Key Stage 1 & 2 (ages 5-10) and will link in with the following subjects:
• Design and Technology
• Maths
• Science
Skills Builder:
• Listening
• Creativity
Boxtheniks
We have been working with Boxtheniks, an inspiring CIC who support and mentor young people in the community to help them achieve their full potential through a unique program incorporating Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy. This is not just your average boxing or gymnastics routine.
It’s Boxtheniks!
Through our partnership we are able to offer free sessions to our partner schools.
Online opportunities
Bearing in mind the ever-changing situation we find ourselves in as educators, we are seeking to switch our offer to an interactive, online and easily accessible offer for the young people and educators of London
Our aim is to offer virtual, extracurricular activity so that educators can engage in our offer through our website with their students; easing the burden on educators to produce online packages
This will allow participants to generate hours online and at home until such time we can resume our normal activity. As our network is always growing you can always be sure that you will find something engaging and new each time you explore the tabs and menus on our site.
Being present on our site is a great way for contributors to promote and share their work and commitment to improving the daily lives of young Londoners through corporate sustainability initiatives.
Drama for all
Drama for all are offering free Under the Sea drama workshops for Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 between April and July 2021. Which you can read about here: http://www.perform.org.uk/userfiles/perform_for_schools/PDFS/Drama4All-UnderTheSea-2021.pdf
Each workshop is led by an experienced DBS checked actor and lasts for 30 minutes for a class of up to 30 children. All facilitators have undertaken COVID-19 training and the workshops have been adapted to ensure that they are safe for everyone involved (for example our Teacher will mark out a 2 metre distance from themselves and the children).. Whilst in your school, they will adhere to your school's safety policies and will be in touch a week before to go through that with you.
If you were a Unicorn
We love creativity and fantasy creatures at WCU, thanks to our partners we have some great unicorn themed prizes to give away including Slime Kit a full set of Unicorn story books and rainbow Scratch Art cards, all for one Lucky Winner.
Simply draw yourself as a unicorn on A4 paper or card and submit to your WCU coordinator.
What about the design makes your Unicorn unique and all about you?
We will select an overall winner to receive our Unicorn themed goody bundle.
Competition closes April 3rd 2021.
-
November Activities In process and our new online log for the Westminster CU website
Wed 09 Sep 2020Planning & Planting Outdoor Spaces
We have arranged for bubble-sized groups to attend outdoor sessions with British Land to plan and plant in their new green space. We will revisit lots and watch it come to life.
Dog Mentoring Program
We are developing a dog mentoring project with lots of opportunities to meet the Author of Hector a dog's storyand some real-life dogs and their owners who offer mentoring through play opportunities.Nicolas and the Six Bells
We helped to develop some great projects during lock-down with some amazing author's. Get a chance to meet and discuss Nicolas and the Six Bell's with it's author.
St John's Mini Farm
The author of Nicolas and the six bells is developing a mini farm and gardens at St John The Evangelist church .Book a bubble-visit to come and see ;there are lots of activities and adventures to be had.
Learn Something New ONLINE with Us
Learning helps to create new connections in your brain and to come up with new ideas and new opportunities. We have filled our site with projects for you to try.
Look out for lots of new fun to be had in December and don't forget to record your hours.
Check the parents' zone tab to access our online learning log to fill in and get earning hours while having educational fun.
-
News this week
Wed 24 Jun 202020/06/20
Dear Parents and Carers
Hello everyone, I hope you are all still staying positive and safe out there and that not being able to access our usual activities and school is not proving too problematic.
Here at Westminster Children’s University, we are really busy making videos for our upcoming well-being project; which will go live on the For Children and Parents tab in next week.I have been busily uploading even more mini -projects so that your children can work through the activities and access some of the fun we have planned for you all. I’ve also been working away continuing to add new and exciting things to the website for everyone to take part in; as you know I will update everyone weekly in this is the news section. Each week you can see all the new projects that you can take part in; remember that all projects are away of gaining new CU hours!
We had some enquiries about passports, if you still have a passport that has space on it, please feel free to use it! However, we have uploaded in the Parents Zone an online log book for your children to fill-in, so they can collect their hours by accessing the website and doing the projects that are in place. However if printing of resources is a difficulty ,that is not a problem either; feel free to make a list of the activity; the day it is done and the amount of hours you would like to claim for it and keep it safe. We will do all of the rest in September when we have an hours update project planned.Trend Micro
Trend Micro are amazing friends at Trend Micro have been working away to create a whole set of guides for you and activities based around technology coding and computing you can access these in the PDFs that are in the tab for Trend Micro in For Children and Parents. These are a super way of encouraging Internet citizenship and developing new skills. We look forward to doing lots of exciting things with Trend Micro, both online and in person, and thank them for their commitment to getting young people Internet safe and literate. Each PDF is worth three hours of learning in your Children’s University log, so there’s lots of opportunity to gain some great CU hours
Break Awareness Project
It’s not just important to stay safe online, but also to stay safe when you’re out and about. Maybe you could be doing a daily exercise or even just going to do some exploring with your parents? Therefore we have added the tab for Break Road safety in For Children and Parents.
There you can find a range of colouring and puzzle activities, all based around road citizenship and safety. In just the same way as with the Trend Micro projects, each one of these activities carries a three hour Children’s University allowance, so get creating, colouring and problem solving .Don’t forget to feel free to share your work with us ;we have stickers for those who are able to share completed work which we can post on the website
Animal Edge
The Animal Edge Project is an amazing way for young people to complete two separate projects, all about unusual and endangered animals across the globe. This project packs contain everything you will need to produce amazing work in response to the information within them. Why not take a picture of your finished project? We would love to post it up on the website in the tab and share your work. Anyone completing the two projects can download their own certificate of completion; I am happy to print these for you and take a little picture of you receiving them at the school if you would like? However, that this would be dependent on you uploading photo evidence of your completed project. Remember to do this you must email the work to me at swilson@queensparkschool.co.uk and this must be done only by your parents.
Arts Award Transition
Arts award are very keen to get young people involved in qualifying for their discover program. Which of course, I can accredit for you once submitted. They have now created a Transition Tool Kit and logbook which young people can use to qualify. It has all been uploaded in the Arts Award and For Children and Parents tab, this is a great way of you taking part in an independent project with your families and sharing your amazing work. I am going to be working with Paddington central to put on an exhibition of artwork generated through the website once we are all back together, so I’m really looking forward to starting to see your wonderful creations coming in.
Entomology Week
We are hoping to celebrate young entomology week this week and next week as it is a national event and here at the children’s university we just love hunting for mini-beasts and all the STEM activities that are accessible through the investigating, recording and classifying of our amazing native mini-beast wildlife.
The young entomology Project are hoping to collect thousands of images of the children’s discoveries to become part of a huge, nationally commissioned piece of art. We are inviting our Children’s University Students to get exploring, observing and creating. Just pick any mini-beast (insect) observe them, then draw, paint or create them. Share the images with us; we can’t wait to submit them and see what you find!Young #Writers Write To Unite project
Well done to everybody who created acrostic poems this week, they have already been sent off to Young Writers and have been acknowledged as entries to the competition.I have also uploaded them on the website and I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of you guys out there come up with for your acrostic poem. Remember you can use your name or a word that you think best resembles your experiences, or even a word that you feel represents you.
Amazing work everybody, they were great to read I can’t wait to receive some more.
-
Great parents' resources for the lockdown
Tue 23 Jun 2020
