Press release: Holiday clubs ready for fun

Out of School Alliance helps holiday clubs prepare for summer fun


With only a few weeks to go before the start of the Summer holidays, the organisers of holiday clubs and playschemes across the country are finalising their preparations.

To help make these preparations easier, the Out of School Alliance, the national organisation for out of school clubs, has launched a new information pack for holiday clubs and playschemes. The Holiday Club Pack consists of 29 template policies, procedures and forms, all designed for holiday club settings and delivered in Word format for easy editing.

All the essential policies and forms required by Ofsted are contained in the Holiday Club Pack, as well as useful additional documents such as template booking forms, risk assessments and permission forms. Even if a club is not Ofsted registered, the contents of the Holiday Club Pack provide a valuable framework for helping club organisers to think through how to deal with issues common to all out of school club settings, such as managing inappropriate behaviour, what to do with uncollected children, and carrying out risk assessments.

As well as publishing the Holiday Club Pack, the Out of School Alliance provides further assistance to holiday club settings through its new series of articles about setting up and running a holiday club, including tips for marketing and ideas for themed activity days, together with an extensive library of factsheets for games, crafts and other activities.

Catherine Wrench, a director of the Out of School Alliance, explained, "It has always been our aim is to make it quicker and easier for organisers to set up holiday clubs and other forms of out of school care. Our online information service, in combination with our downloadable information packs, ensures that the necessary guidance is instantly available 24 hours per day."

The Holiday Club Pack and the holiday club articles are available from www.outofschoolalliance.co.uk

5 July 2010