South Gloucestershire Playscheme were awarded £5,000 by Patchway Town Council in 2022 and this is how they spent their grant:
This summer we delivered our playscheme at Patchway Youth Centre for 4 weeks (1st – 26th August 2022), 5 days a week. We had capacity to enable up to 40 children to attend each day. We employed 1 leader and 3 workers in Patchway – the leader is also a local resident, and the others all live in South Glos. We also took on 4 volunteers (aged 14-35) who all live in Patchway. One of the volunteers undertook over 105 hours of volunteering for us which was amazing!
We kept to our model of 1 session per day for 4 hours as this continues to work well for our staffing and children and families using our services. Our sessions included arts and crafts, sports, and games and lots more!
We had themed weeks – Silly Sports, Under The Sea, Around The World and Superhero’s and Villains. All the activities provided in that week were kept to the theme. For example, silly sports included water balloon and spoon races and giant football, Superhero’s & Villains week seen children create masks and capes and undertake an obstacle course chasing each other away. Under the sea showed us that the children were so creative as they made fish tanks and octopuses out of paper cups (the children were great at using all our recycling materials during this week). Around the world had children trying unusual fruits and foods that come from across the world (Avocados, Mango’s, Papaya fruit, Physalis, Passion Fruit, Pomegranate, Tapas, croissants, brioche, plantain chips, polish meat & cheese). The themed weeks worked well as gave some structure to the children and they learned a lot without realising it!
Every child received a free cold lunch each day which included wraps / rolls / sandwiches, falafels, cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, pasta salad, mini sausages / chicken nuggets and lots of fruit.We decided to continue using Snack Attacks in Patchway as they were able to do us a great deal (as we are a local small charity), plus their food at Easter was great.We continue to try to use local organisations for anything we bring into the playscheme as feel it important to support local people and businesses.
We had 106 different children from Patchway (62 Patchway and 44 Charlton Hayes) who attended the scheme. The 62 children from Patchway attended a total of 297 times (average of 5 days per child). The 44 children from Charlton Hayes attended a total of 297 times (average of 7 days per child). Below are some graphs showing the statistics for the children who attended. This year we seen a decrease in the number of children who are eligible for free school meals (or SEN) – 35.85%. This will impact our funding going forwards as HAF funding only funds these children.
We had 9 children who attended from Patchway with additional needs, and an additional 6 from Charlton Hayes (total of 15 which is 14% of the children who attended). For these children, we provided a pop-up tent, ear defenders and fiddle toys to enable them to participate in activities as well as having somewhere quiet / safe for them to go if things were a bit overwhelming. These items really helped settle in the children, especially as it can be very noisy with so many children. In addition, the manager and myself spoke to every parent whose child had an additional need to ensure we could support them whilst attending the playscheme. We also had 2 children with health needs which we are able to support to attend our sessions.
25% of the children who attended from Patchway, and 63.6% from Charlton Hayes are BAME. This is much higher than the average for the area.
Bristolian Productions came in and delivered sessions around circus skills and a puppet / magic show which the children loved. We also had Bloodhound Education deliver 2 sessions with us, learning about the fastest land speed vehicle and the children created their own vehicles out of card & paper and also built towers, bridges and learned a lot of STEM skills. The children loved learning the different skills. We also worked alongside Patchway library who provided us with packs to support children who wanted to take part in the Summer Reading Challenge.
Morrison’s and ASDA were really great in supporting us with grants and vouchers which were greatly appreciated.
We had amazing feedback from parents:
‘Thank you very much for your hard work. It has been an amazing experience for the children!’
‘Thank you for your dedication and perfectly planned sessions. My son loved it’
‘Thanks for organising such amazing clubs. My daughter was so worried before she turned up as she didn’t know anyone, but it’s such a great opportunity for her to make new friends. The leaders were excellent, food was great, location was perfect and it’s even free of charge. Thanks you so much!’
‘Thankyou Ternaya for taking the time to speak to me and offering some help and support it means more than you know’
