Red Nose Day Cupcake Competition (2015)
Red Nose Day is a big charity fund-raising event organised by the charity Comic Relief. Comic Relief was set up in 1985 by some comedians to help raise money and change lives in Africa and the UK during a time of extreme famine and suffering in certain parts of Africa. It has grown into a major international charity.
The girls’ school strongly emphasises raising money for those less privileged than us, rather than for school facilities (which are already good), and they had a competition to make the best decorated cupcakes.
The girls made and (with a bit of supervision) cooked the cupcake batter and drew designs for their cakes, before then decorating them.
Learning Powers Cake Competition (2017)
The school my daughters attend encourages the concept of a growth mindset (Carol Dweck) and worked with the educational consultant, C. J. Simister to put together five pairs of ‘Learning Powers’ that the school uses to nurture growth for the girls (focusing on one pair each half term):
1. Squirrel – sapphire power – initiative and independence
2. Turtle – emerald power – persistence and reflectiveness
3. Hedgehog – ruby power – resilience and risk-taking
4. Bee – topaz power – flexibility and collaboration
5. Owl – diamond power – curiosity and originality
The school organised a cake-making competition to support this initiative and the girls really went to town with their cakes, baking the actual cakes and then (having watched daddy work on their sister’s cakes over the years) decorate them with all five of the learning animals. I helped with colouring the sugarpaste and adding CMC edible glue to parts (like the tree and leaves) that needed to set hard, but the girls did all the design and decorating. Budding cake decorators!
