It seems like a fond, distant memory now but we had an amazing summer & as this is the first blog we’ve put out since then we just wanted to touch on some highlights & indulge in some shoutouts.
Wow, what a busy month we had in February! We worked with hundreds of families & are so proud of our incredible staff who work so hard & care so much about giving everybody a wonderful experience.
Active Care…
Our school holiday provision was back & better than ever! This half term, we ran over 2 main sites, Alexander Sports Centre & Ursula Taylor school. Steph Hale headed up the team at ASC as Project Lead for the week, while at UT, the same role was shared between Chloe Watson, Jack Vase, George Bird & Craig Emerson. At the Ursula Taylor site, we were able to offer up to 60 children per fully funded places thanks to the HAF funding from Bedford Borough Council for families in receipt of free school meals.
Both sites offered a wide range of activities, led by enthusiastic teams of group leaders & assistants. On the timetable was everything from team building & outdoor activities, to sports & arts & crafts, as well as our usual inflatable fun on the bouncy castles, slides & obstacle courses. The Nerf Wars proved especially popular, as you can see from the photos!
This half term, our funded SEND provision has been EPIC! We’ve had so much going on for children with special educational needs or disabilities.
Our swimming sessions were run from Pilgrims school pool for up to 2 families per session, allowing them to enjoy free play in the water, facilitated by SSG staff & using our toys & equipment.
We also had free play sessions in our sensory room, allowing children to explore & enjoy the wide range of sensory tools in a calm, safe environment.
SEND Provision…
This half term, our funded SEND provision has been EPIC! We’ve had so much going on for children with special educational needs or disabilities.
Our swimming sessions were run from Pilgrims school pool for up to 2 families per session, allowing them to enjoy free play in the water, facilitated by SSG staff & using our toys & equipment.
We also had free play sessions in our sensory room, allowing children to explore & enjoy the wide range of sensory tools in a calm, safe environment.
For the first time this year, our forest school programme was back & as fun as ever. These sessions allowed up to 5 families per time slot to try activities such as camp cooking, den building, treasure hunts, woodland art & bug hunts!
Finally, it wouldn’t be half term without our hugely energetic inflatable sessions! Up to 5 families per session were able to have free play on our range of bouncy castles, inflatable slides & obstacle courses, fully supervised by the SSG team.
Thanks to all the staff involved with these sessions over the week & to the families that came & took part, we had a blast!
New Role…
Molly is always cheerful & hard working, good at building relationships with children & staff & has an infectious love & talent for the sport. She takes great pride in her teaching & helping children reach goals.
Recently, we were delighted to offer her the new position of Head Coach. This gives her the responsibility of overseeing the programme delivery; using her experience to work closely with all the coaches to ensure sessions meet our high standards; offering advice & support as well as getting involved in programme development & managing equipment. The new role will support the Project Lead to ensure every aspect of the programme is looked after.
This is going to be especially important as the Academy grows in popularity, with numbers increasing each week & the hours extending to meet this demand. Congratulations to Molly in her new role & well done to the whole team for the ongoing success of the gymnastics provision.
Meet the Team!
Every month we like to introduce to a member of the SSG team. This month it’s Jamie!
Jamie Seymour
Job Role:
Mr Versatile- Tutor & Project Lead
What’s your favourite thing about working for SSG?
Milton Keynes College as the Women & Girls Football Team Coach
What was your first job?
Paperboy when I was 14
Where were you working before SSG?
Milton Keynes College as the Women & Girls Football Team Coach
Do you have any pets?
None
What is your favourite season?
Summer
Any hidden talents?
Lazy eye- I can see you in HD!
What would you choose to give up forever if you had to pick between crisps or chocolate?
I’d give up Chocolate
Have you ever met anyone famous?
Boris Johnson & Kimi Raikkonen (F1 Driver)
What is your karaoke song?
Oasis- Don’t Look Back in Anger
A note from our MD…
We have recently taken some time to review our company vision, mission and values. It has been a really valuable and interesting process to unpick exactly what purpose we are trying to serve as a company as well as what strategies we are implementing to achieve it and recognising some core values that we want to identify to as a company and as a group of people. We recently carried out a workshop with our management team to look deeper in to our values and mission statement and it was fantastic to see that so much of what we hope to have installed in our people and services is coming through but also to take the time to identify what we can still do to improve! We are very lucky to have such a great group of staff that really do love to ensure we meet our company vision.
So, the outcome of our work…….
Our Company VISION is Helping people to reach their potential through being active and developing skills.
We will achieve this vision by adopting the following MISSION statements…
- Participants – ensure we provide enjoyable, engaging, beneficial and safe services for all our participants;
- Staff – be a great place to work where people are inspired to be the best they can be, through opportunity and support;
- Portfolio – bring our customers a range of exciting, innovative and high-quality sport, physical activity, education and training programmes;
- Partners – nurture a winning local network of suppliers and stakeholders all suitable for us to achieve our vision;
- Sustainability – be a mindful, responsible, effective and efficient organisation throughout all our business activities;
- Customer Service – provide an outstanding customer service experience at every possible opportunity.
We will carry out our mission whilst demonstrating our core values as a business and team of staff…
- Helpfulness
- Integrity
- Engaging
- Aspirational
- Acceptance
- Positivity
We can’t wait to get cracking to ensure that our core values become a really central part of our working practices.
Dan Yusuf
Looking Forward…!
As spring approaches, we are looking forward to our pe provision continuing, including after school clubs. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a bit of warmer weather & the chance to get outside more! Also, look out in the next blog for a round up of our inflatable fun day, raising money for Ukraine.
