Shout! Holiday Activities Consultation

Consultation 2012

At the end of the summer holidays each year, we send out a consultation to all parents that have used Shout! Holiday Activities. We are always keen to hear what you think about the services we provide, |view the results to find out how we did.

Following the consultation and parents feedback we have made the following changes for 2012:

Most popular activities in 2012
The sports courses proved to be the most popular choice with 20.4% of children attending (this mirrors an overall increased interest in sport across the Borough with the London 2012 Olympic Games taking place in the summer and the Olympic Cycle Race and Time Trial coming to Elmbridge).The second most popular activities were Arts and Crafts (15.3%) and Xcel Play Days (15.3%). 88% of parents thought the activities were good or very good.

When asked about other activities they would like to see taking place at Shout!, parents listed pony/horse riding, the climbing wall at Xcel, trampolining, skiing and more outdoor activities such as BMX, zorbing and skating workshops. They also wished for music workshops for children who already play instruments and various dance style activities. |
Horse riding and the climbing wall at Xcel are expensive activities to run and in order to offer parents the most value for money we are happy to direct parents to |a list of riding clubs in Elmbridge and to |the Xcel Leisure Complex where they can find out more information about the climbing wall. This summer, we will be offering a wider variety of outdoor activities including climbing (outdoors), caving, quad biking, den building and fire skills and are also looking into trialling entirely new activities. We will also introduce new sports in the ever popular sports courses and various dance style and movie making workshops.

When asked how they would like their children to use their time during the day on the Activity Schemes, 71% of parents preferred children to have a choice of structured activities to pick from.
In summer and during October Half Term, children were given more options of how to spend their time. They could choose between quiet room (board games, books, cards etc), a sport or outdoor activity and an arts and crafts activity. Each Site Leader has a timetable broken down into hourly slots with a choice of at least 2 different activities on offer at all times. |See an example of a day at the Activity Scheme.

75% of booking this year were for extended weeks (8.30am to 5.30pm).
This confirmed that parents welcomed the flexibility of longer hours, especially working parents. This year, we have extended the length of day on the Sports courses as well as age groups. 24% of parent indicated that the extended hours was a factor for booking while 27% welcome the wider variety of sports on offer. Parents indicated they wanted a wider variety of organised craft activities and games to break up the sport sessions and this is something that has already been implemented in Summer and during October Half Term.

85% of parents thought the quality of staff was high
We have again recruited high calibre of staff to look after your children, we look for those that have the initiative and flair to provide exciting, fun, challenging and safe activities.

Registration procedure and information on sites
Overall, 91% of parents were satisfied with the registration procedure. We have continued to train staff to make registering your child as quick and straightforward as possible. We have reviewed our |policies and procedures and recommend that you view them so you know how we operate.

Booking Line
We are glad that overall, 97% of parents are happy with the service you receive when booking, however we believe there is always room for improvement. Please feel free to |let us know your comments.

Shout! brochure
We have begun a review of our brochure taking into account all parent's views over the last few years. Some changes were made to this year's summer brochure and we have introduced a new look in the October Half Term/Christmas brochure. We would like to know what you think about it so please feel free to |let us know your comments.

When asked what other information they would like to see on the website, parents indicated they would like to be able to book and pay online. When visiting the Shout! pages, they would also like to view pictures of the activities, download medical and permission forms, find location maps for the activities and check if the extended option is available on some of the activities.
We have investigated this facility and in order to keep costs down, we will not be progressing with online bookings at this stage. We publish pictures of previous Shout! activities on our |Facebook page and also on these pages. You can |complete and download a Medical and Consent form on these pages. |Go to the Venue page to view the locations that we operate from. |Find out more about the Shout! Activity Scheme and the core and extended day options.

Shout! Holiday Activities Facebook Page
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Equal opportunities
Shout! Holiday Activities offers an integrated service and we are happy to make adjustments for children who have additional needs. |Contact us to find out more.