The Ark Association Ltd recognised a need to provide care for children before and after school so that parents could return to work or pursue further education and our first Kids' Club was opened on Monday 24th October 1994 at Burley Road.

INDOOR PLAY

The children can do many different kinds of craft activities, such as painting, finger painting and shadow painting.

They can make things such as puppets, material pictures and kites. There is facility for cooking and doing jigsaw puzzles and we have construction kits such as Lego.

We have a PlayStation and Wii consoles, and a variety of board games. Dressing up and “fantasy” games are enjoyed by the younger ones.

There is a television available for selected programmes but we find that it is not watched very much as there is so much else going on.

OUTDOOR PLAY

The children have the opportunity for supervised outdoor play and we have equipment for them to enjoy a wide variety of outdoor games ranging from football and cricket, through to tennis, swing ball and badminton.

We also enter competitions sponsored by the national network of Kids Clubs, such as designing posters and cards and we mark special occasions such as Diwali and Christmas with special activities.

The emphasis is on free choice, after all it is the children’s club, but we would gently encourage them to do a variety of different things.