to be unsure about handing my child over to an enormous summer playscheme with hundreds of kids?

[icelandicsaga]

There is a church run playscheme for one week in the holidays. They take getting on for 900 children and it is run by volunteers who come (mostly) from nearby churches. It's on a massive field - with marquees. DS is (just about)7 and I'm sure would enjoy the craft/games/activities but I am having a bit of a problem with the idea of dropping him off in a massive field with a load of people I have never met and trusting them to look after him. From what I gather there is quite a strong bible instruction vibe to the whole thing which I am not at all keen on, but it seems a fair deal in that they are looking after your child for 5 hours a day. Am I just being silly?

A church near us runs something like this. It's ridiculously cheap, but the religious content is apparently quite full-on according to friends who have used it. I guess that's the price you pay.

Personally, I'd rather pay a bit more for activities without the indoctrination, but I can see the attraction for those who struggle to afford the other options.

I wouldn't.

I used to help with church run things in the past but now I wouldn't. Its v heavy on indoctrination ( well obviously, its the idea of it - so obviously lots of it is presented as "true".)

Also it relies heavily on volunteers who dont normally work together (say like a school.) Lots will be earnest and well meankng, and many are teachers in their holidays... but I still wouldn't.

900?!?!?!? That is huge. You might get that in childcare at a big christian festival, mot sure id do it if I didn't have to as a holiday camp. If you wanted a church holiday camp lots of churches run them and it would bemore like 100 kids!

I help out at exactly the thing you describe, but with approx 300 children (900 is a huge amount!). The one i help out at has been running for 30+ years, all volunteers are CRB/DBS checked, they have training days etc and it runs incredibly smoothly. They meet the correct ratios plus have teenagers helpers for all the groups.
They get children who both attend church and don't attend. They watch drama, have special appearances from puppets, sing songs with actions, have a bible story each day related to the theme of the holiday club, do activities related to it. Then after lunch it's mostly games and other activities.

YANBU. I used to work on summer schemes when I was younger. I was qualified and worked at a nursery during term times and no way would I send my child to one that big.

I sent mine to a very similar one last year.

There was a massive number of kids (think it was 600) but actually they were totally seperated into groups of 8. They had an adult and a teenager with them and the 8 stayed together all the time. No different to a tiny group in my eyes - 2 leaders to 8 kids.

I would query how they run it - Is it small groups or a big free for all.

The religious side of it was quite heavily pushed - my older dd would have been almost 10 and did want to start going to the church. Church was the same time as swimming lessons so she chose them.

Think younger one was almost kicked out for her anti-religion views ! (Which she gets from her dad).

I used it as free childcare - got a couple of hours to myself.

I remember going to a playscheme in the early 1980's. They let us watch horror films and eat crap.

Its a church thing obvious ly dont send him they will have ratios worked out regardlessof volunteers he would be fine but imo you are not going to send himbut just wanted a moan that you thought it was too big and badly run

I ran play schemes and never let children eat crap and watch horror films

IME Seven is a very border line age (I was a brown Owl and some new 7y Brownies were quite confident, but a lot were vey shy and I wouldn't have trusted them not to get lost or say if something upset them).

Children do an enormous amount of emotional and physical maturing between 7&9. Their abilities at games, crafts and having the nerve to speak up for themselves changes beyond recognition.

At 7 DD1 would probably have been fine, if she liked the activities. DD2 is more sociable, but less confident. She would have found it really daunting unless she was going with DD1 or a friend.

Can you play it be ear? Perhaps go along with him for the first hour or so and see?

Does he know any other children going? That would help a lot.

When my eldest was 5 and on his first summer holiday from school I (for some reason) decided that he was too old for CM that he younger sister still went to, and that I should find alternative child care for him. I enrolled him in a large holiday club at a local youth center. He was a shyish boy anyway but I was convinced he would enjoy it once he got there - and he liked the activities on offer. Came back at 5.30 to find all the supervisors sitting in reception drinking tea and chatting, a minor riot going on in the hall and a quiet, cowed little DS1, sitting in the corner of one of the big rooms, smelling of poo - he had been so nervous and miserable he had been afraid to ask where the loo was. I took his hand, took him back to the car, went back in to read them the riot act and then rang CM to ask if she could take him after all. And this scheme was meant for all primary aged children but clearly it simply was not suitable for the youngest ones. And then I rang to complain. I still blush with shame and remorse about sending him there without checking up properly.

That is awful.

There are still the ideas prevalent that:

Looking after kids is easy
Anyone can do it, even better if they are young and/or female
Children are generic 'kids' and provision can be the same for anyone 5-16.

Quite, branchingout! I naively assumed anyone who was allowed to look after kids would be capable of doing it. I know better now.

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, sorry.

Quite a few of the churches (not CofE or Catholic) local to me have professional, qualified youth and family workers - and the council run youth club i work at takes volunteers from a local theological college who train up youth ministers (and bloody good at the job they are too, most have been running youth clubs since they were 15/16 so 4-5 years of experience!) so I wouldn't automatically assume that all the volunteers are unqualified or inexperienced.

I would want to know how they plan to keep track of all the children - 900 is a bit big for a headcount every 15 minutes - but if you think your dc will enjoy being part of something like that I'd go for it.

Also, 900 might be the number of individual children who took part last year, rather than them having 900 children on site all at once?

Wow, thanks for all your responses. A few answers: yes, I suspect the 900 is the total involved last year, not the total each day - however, there are clearly many hundreds involved every day. They split them up into groups of 10 to an adult. DS is on the shyer side of the continuum. I would be very happy, nay delighted, to send him to a paid for/more expensive (and much much smaller) scheme but unfortunately there aren't any in our town and I don't have a car.
DH thinks on balance it would be OK but I'm still not convinced....

Tigerbike - yes that scheme sounds similar.

900 children who don't know one another or the organizers?! Run a mile!

But training to be a minister of religion is a slightly different skill set to being a teacher, youth worker, early years practitioner or playworker...

I am sure that the volunteers in question are excellent young people with the best intentions in the world - they are probably great with children too - but there is a body of knowledge, skills and experience required to provide appropriately for children.

I would want to see evidence that each group of children was being led by someone with appropriate qualifications and experience. A full set of policies and procedures should also be made available to you. Even then I would still have doubts that it would be manageable with that number of children.

A family member is connected with a church that likes to do lots for/with young people.

There is a tendency to want to view anyone connected with the church as inherently trustworthy/reliable to care for children - a safeguarding nightmare as far as I am concerned.

Desperately - I think the way you describe would very accurately describe the one near us - except there are even more children and they are on a field.....

I used to get sent to stuff like this (without the religious element) when I was little. Masses of kids, really overwhelming, not knowing any one, random activities,
and seemingly constant churn of teenagers 'helping'. My perception (although I may be wrong) was that any of us could easily have wandered off, and all the staff would have just either not noticed or assumed we were with another group. In fact, I remember I used to go and sit on the stairs when I felt frightened, and I don't recall anyone ever coming to find me or telling my mum. I really did not enjoy it.

Oh dear tigermoll, that sounds horrible and obviously you still feel deeply about it even now.