Welcome to our blog! We always have so many exciting things happening here at SSG so want to share some of the highlights with a wider audience. Even in the third national lockdown, we have been keeping busy with lots of projects.
Even though many of our programmes are still shut, we have had a busy few weeks and continue to provide high quality provision to families and schools across Bedfordshire. This month’s blog mentions some of our highlights.
February Half Term Active Childcare Camp
Over the February half term holiday we were able to run our Active Childcare camp for keyworker children who have been attending school during lockdown. It was fantastic for our staff to get stuck in to running all the activities again, including our inflatables, the climbing wall, Olympic games, arts and crafts and so much more. We loved seeing all the smiling faces and we had some lovely feedback from families:
Thank you for working hard to continue this throughout lockdown, it has been an absolute life saver for us parents who have to work, and are struggling to juggle work and home schooling… and I recommend you to anyone who will listen
Connor really enjoyed his time at SSG… he had a great day and didn't want to leave. He said he would like to go again. Thank you for helping him have so much fun in such strange times for him
Oscar came back very happy and tired, thank you!
Short Breaks
In partnership with Bedford Borough Council, we have been facilitating ‘short breaks’ for SEND children and their families, allowing them the opportunity to do activities and enjoy our sensory room. One of these activities is family swimming sessions at the wonderful hydrotherapy pool at St John’s School. Over half term and at weekends, our qualified swimming instructors have facilitated these valuable opportunities for children to enjoy being in the water, offering tips, playing games and supervising free play. We have also been running activity sessions at the Alexander Sport Centre. We have had some lovely feedback from our families:
Thank you so much, it was very important for my girls to enjoy time out with mummy. Amazing staff, amazing activities
Absolutely fantastic - thank you so much. The children (and adults) had so much fun. It was emotional to see such joy on the children’s faces
SPACE Activity Day
We have a longstanding relationship with a wonderful organisation called SPACE who provide a valuable service for young people aged 9-16. We normally do sport or swimming sessions but recently delivered our first outdoor activity day for them, using lots of our favourite equipment including orienteering, archery tag and the Terminator. It was a really fun day for everyone involved and we look forward to more work with these wonderful people in the future.
MEET THE TEAM
Every month we’ll be introducing you to a member of our team. This month we talked to George.
George Bird
How long you’ve worked for SSG:
A year and a half.
Favourite part about working for SSG:
Meeting so many amazing people and putting smiles on children’s faces when delivering.
Something interesting about yourself:
I coach a men’s football team in the Beds County League on a Saturday. The coaching never stops!
A word from our MD (Dan Yusuf)
This month we have really begun to feel the positive impact of the planned release of lockdown. We have been inundated with people, organisations and schools that are all wanting to use our services to support in getting children, young people and adults outdoors and active in a safe and secure way. Fortunately, we have been busy over the last 12 months preparing for this. We have some of the most incredible people in the industry that despite the setbacks and false starts during this time have constantly sought to find ways to improve and expand our offer of activity so that we really do have something for everyone.
It has been great to see the emphasis put on activity and physical fitness by our country’s leaders over the past few months. Sport and physical activity is clearly visible on the roadmap and the reason for this is that it provides not only brilliant physical benefits but also the social and wellbeing values it brings.
Internally, it has been incredible to see the levels of planning, training and preparation that is going in to making our services as good as they can possibly be. It is hugely inspiring for me to see the absolute commitment and determination of our teams to deliver the very best quality of provision possible. We are really blessed as an organisation to have such wonderful people.
Looking Forward…
The next big thing for us will be our Easter holiday childcare provision. We can’t wait to see new and familiar faces joining our staff for fun activities and experiences. Places are filling super fast so it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks!
We are also soooooo excited to restart our evening and weekend programmes! It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to run our swimming, gymnastics, football and rugby sessions and our staff are raring to go!
