Holiday clubs

[Icedfinger]

I'm a primary school teacher. I recently returned to the job after maternity leave and have found a job which is completely changed and am quickly becoming disenchanted.

In our area there are holiday clubs with a PE focus. I know as a child I would have hated this. I'm looking at developing holiday clubs which are fun, outdoorsy and practical but with a maths/science focus or an arts focus.

Would anyone else have been interested in this as a child? Or would your children be interested? Don't want to throw myself into it if it's not the sort of thing parents want.

I use holiday clubs a fair bit. To be honest, I don't care what the focus of the club is, and neither do my children. The things that make a club work for us are :

For me:
A reasonable price with no 'extras' all the time.
Flexible hours: 7.30am start, 6pm finish, with 1/2 or short day option

For the kids:
Friendly, enthusiastic workers who engage and love their job.
a range of activities so they have choice within their day
a routine, so they know what's coming next.
lots of fun and kids their own age.

Also, all of the clubs I use have an upper age limit of Y6. I don't know what I'm going to do next year as she's not ready to be left for days on end by herself. It would be great if there was an option for y7+.

DD hates the sport orientated clubs but we are lucky she can go to a variety of different ones. I think the ones she likes most are the ones with no real focus, meaning they do a bit of everything.

We have an outdoor one, great for going home wet, tired, dirty but absolute happy.

I think for us the wrap around care plus great facilities some clubs have due to being in public school buildings are an advantage for Summer holiday. For half terms I think DD is just glad to have fun and play and fool around.

The Mad Science franchise runs holiday clubs in various places round the country, and near where I used to live there was also a thriving 'Arty Party' one too.

So you need to check out what is already available locally, for yes parents do want and use clubs such as this and they already exist.

You need to look at the practicalities: suitable premises (with access to outdoor space) and staff ratios, the hours you will offer (need to be at least as long as a school day, ideally more), where you will store equipment and supplies, and all the regulatory and insurance stuff that will be needed.