The story so far
The Children's University in the United Kingdom began as a
Saturday school project in Birmingham in the early 1990s. It was
instigated by Professor Sir Tim Brighouse and Sir David Winkley,
then Chief Education Officer and Headteacher, and supported by the
King Edward Foundation. During the next decade, a dozen or so local
Children's University centres were started across England, Wales
and Scotland, offering a variety of out-of-school-hours learning
experiences to children.
In December 2006, the CU Trust was formed and, with the
financial support of the Department for Education (formerly the
Department for Children, Schools and Families) and the Sutton
Trust, established the Children's University.
Other funding partners have included JP Morgan, Nationwide,
Fidelity Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation and Charles
Dunstone Charitable Trust. The Chief Executive, Ger Graus, was
appointed in April 2007 and set up the CU Trust head office in
Manchester. The CU Trust's Chair is Dr Sandy Bradbrook.
During 2011, the Children's University worked across 70 local CU
centres in England with 100,000+ children aged 7 to 14, each in
possession of their own Passport To Learning. This
resulted in more than 1,350,000 hours of high quality learning
either side of the school day, at weekends and during school
holidays. By the end of the year in England there was a waiting
list of 30 local CU centres designate. There is also a Children's
University presence in the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales
involving 20,000+ children for in excess of 275,000 hours of
learning. Through its head office in Germany, the Children's
University includes Service Children's Education schools across the
world: Belgium, Belize, Brunei, Canada, Cyprus, Falkland Islands,
Gibraltar, Italy, The Netherlands and Turkey.
Find your nearest
local CU / CU Map