Seriously silly: How events like Surbiton Ski Sunday can teach new life skills

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Surbiton.com: October 25, 2014 - 4:00am

Grown adults strapped to blocks of ice hurling themselves down a length of plastic sheeting might not scream international educational fact-finding opportunity, but there it is.

A delegation of academic and charitable groups from four different countries observed this year’s Surbiton Ski Sunday and were convinced such strange ideas are actually good for the mind. The visitors – from Germany, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands – hope to pursuade EU bosses that social and emotional learning is worthy of funding alongside traditional education.

And the consortium, that also includes International Youth Arts Festival organisers Creative Youth, said events like Ski Sunday are real-world examples of that kind kind of learning – where people, often strangers, come together for organised silliness and community camaraderie.

Last weekend's Ski Sunday, which was attended by a consortium of academics researching social and emotional learning Anna Racz, who runs a charitable foundation in Budapest, was impressed by the King’s Soup, which takes place every year after Ski Sunday and sees participants cook potato and leek soup together for a fictional grumpy king.

Kingston College has won a national award for its work on social and emotional learning, and to date more than 100 colleges from across the UK have visited to find out how it helps kids who have had difficult childhoods.

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/11557806.Seriously_silly__How_events_like_Surb...

SurreyComet.co.uk

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