How did it begin?

 

Our holiday camps started in Summer 2013 after a friend from Barbados told us how their schools have to open all Summer and run camps for children.

It got us thinking.

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We were already running after school clubs at St John's C of E and knew that it had amazing  sports facilities:  a sports field, huge astro-turf pitch, netball court and indoor barn  separate to the school building. This amazing resource was shut for 13 weeks a year. We approached the headmaster and he was very enthusiastic in our plans to use the grounds during the holidays. 

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In an age when children are doing less exercise than ever and the streets are not safe to play on, we decided to start a camp where the children would be safe, in a small environment and yet could be given the freedom to run, play sport and challenge themselves.

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Sports

At our camps, we start every day with a sports session to wake them up. During the week the children will get a chance to do a range of sports including athletics, basketball, badminton, benchball, cricket, dodgeball, football, golf, hockey, lacrosse, netball, rounders, rugby, tennis and volleyball.

We also play lots of inclusive games, like scooters, capture the flag, parachute games and their favourite - Wave, an energetic version of hide and seek.  Over the years the children have made up their own versions of some of these games too.

The highlight of our summer camps is the water games afternoon and we finish with a water slide. They get very wet! 

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Arts and crafts

We base our arts activities on the natural world around us and the current season, using as many natural materials as we can. Please visit our gallery to see some of their finished articles.

We love the forest and plan many activities during our camps as often as possible.  We do lots of sport and art whilst in the forest or collect objects to use in art when we return.

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Forest activities

Every camp is different- we vary the activities according to the seasons. We love taking the children into the forest for sports and craft activities such as den building. We draw lots of inspiration from the artist Andy Goldsworthy for our forest art sessions.  We are also allowed to use the school field for camp fire cooking. You need to try our Woof'ems! Delicious. 

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Groupings

In most of the sporting activities the children are grouped according to age, but we do some vertical grouping and some games like parachute with the whole group. Sometimes we group the boys and girls separately. There have been lots of studies done which show that girls perform better at sport when taught away from boys. 

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Flexibility

We are able to be flexible with our schedules as we have a small number of children attending compared to other camps in the area. If it rains we can change the timetable around or add in extra craft sessions, bingo, pictionary or charades. We always have out some board games which the children can freely use during the day.

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Age groups

Everyone from years Reception to year 7 can register for our camps. You do not need to go to St John's school. 

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