Over 800 young people took part in the second University of the First Age Summer School in July. The youngsters, aged 11 to 13 years, took part in one of two week-long courses based mainly at the University of Central England. Courses included Maths and Literacy as well as Urdu, Spanish, French, Science and Technology, Performing Arts, Animation and Glass-making. The Summer School activities are followed by a set of distance learning activities throughout the rest of the year. The Core Skills Development Partnership have been actively involved from the beginning of the plans to boost children's literacy and numeracy through this innovative approach.

More than 200 pupils took part in accelerated literacy work. This Summer School approach has recently been introduced nation-wide following the Birmingham example. The accelerated literacy group spent the summer in correspondence with their 'virtual tutors' creating shared poems and stories with a little help from the fax and email.

Pupils on the intensive maths course spent 5 hours day improving their numeracy skills with some unusual techniques - a maths magical space tour zooming into the worlds of Fibonacci and chaos theory; walking the plank as mathematical pirates searching for treasures hidden in numbers and patterns or building a Terror Tower!

Principal of the UFA, Maggie Farrar, said: "The UFA is all about working with schools, communities and young people to raise youngsters' achievements by improving their confidence in themselves as learners". Both students and tutors enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot at the second successful Summer School. An enthusiastic Maths learner summed it up for everyone, saying "I feel so proud of myself. When I go back to school I'll understand so much more".