MCA Holiday Club September 2013 – June 2014
The Context We see MCA as a community asset and our facilities are open to community users at evenings, weekends and holidays. This academy is an investment in the future of this neighbourhood and needs to be a hub for local activity and regeneration.
The Challenge Our locality has significant levels of deprivation. We see our community programme as a way of combatting poor health, combined with reducing the high rates of crime and anti social behaviour in order to improve the wellbeing of residents. School holiday periods are often a time where youth nuisance and anti-social behavior levels are at their highest. Building on our previous year’s successes in terms of offering a positive alternative to negative behaviour, the challenge this year was to maintain high levels of engagement of young people over every holiday period, ensuring diversity of provision to encourage participation in non traditional sports. Whereby previous years’ programmes had been part funded by partner organisations, with no external funding available this year, value for money and partnerships would be more important than ever.
tennis being available. There was also an ‘Arts and Crafts’ camp, which entailed The Solution creating collages and portraits, which Over the last academic year, MCA has would be placed in a handmade frame. organised and staged four holiday programmes for children in the local A survey was given to parents, which community. These have been considered a received brilliant feedback. 91% rated great success, with extremely positive their child’s experience as brilliant, with feedback received from parents of those 97% saying they would bring their child again! They also rated the academy, on who attended. average, as a 9 in regards to it being a community facility. OCTOBER The first holiday programme took place between the 28th and 31st of October. 134 children attended the camps, with 96% from the target postcodes. Five MCA students also attended. There were three different camps on offer, which offered a range of activities. The first was a ‘Health and Wellbeing’ camp, which had activities such as Muay Thai, taekwondo and a visit to the Squash World Championships. The second camp available was called ‘Be Creative’, which included making Halloween masks, frames and paper mache. The final camp on offer in October was a ‘Street Dance and Drama’ course, which was taken by RW Street Dance School and MaD Theatre Drama group. As well as this, the gym was used by three parents/carers over the week.
EASTER The third holiday programme of the year took place in the Easter break, between the 8th and 10th, as well as a second session from the 15th to the 17th April. 102 children attended this programme, including 10 MCA students taking part.
92% of the attendees were from the target postcodes. There was building work FEBRUARY taking place at the time, which resulted in an indoor dance camp, hosted by all three The second holiday programme took place of the dance schools, as well as an from the 17th to the 20th February. 136 outdoor event. children, aged 5-13 attended this camp, with 97% from the target postcode. Once more, some MCA students attended. Two camps remained from the previous programme, with ‘Street Dance and Drama’, hosted by the same groups, and ‘Health and Wellbeing’ appearing again. There were different activities on offer in the latter, with trampolining, boxing and Silchester Drive | Harpurhey | Manchester | M40 8NT manchestercommunicationacademy.com admin@mca.manchester.sch.uk | 0161 202 0161
PARENT FEEDBACK Of the 37 parents who completed the survey after the final programme, all answered that they felt welcome and would bring their child again. Moreover, 27 rated their child’s experience as brilliant, with the other 10 also giving positive feedback. Of the comments given by parents, several took the time to thank the academy, with praise often directed towards the staff. They were described as “brilliant”, “wonderful”, and “always willing to help.” This is further emphasised in the survey, as the vast majority rated the staff as either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’, with no negative scores given.
One parent said “Thank you for what you are doing for the community.” This ties in with how the parents view MCA within the community, with all rating the academy as an 8/10 or above in the survey (30 parents gave it a straight ten). This is helped by the aims the academy has when staging the events, with many children from the community given the chance to take part.
The dance camp was delivered by RW Street Dance School, Morgan School of Irish Dancing and Fairstage Academy. The outdoor activity camp consisted of 3 events: BMXing, kite making and skateboarding. This was enjoyed by all who attended, as after the programme, the children rated their enjoyment to an average of 9.
IMPACT All in all, the holiday programmes have been extremely successful, with a total of 535 visits to the camps and 94.75% of these visitors coming from the target postcodes of M8, M9 and M40.
The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves with evident parent/community trust in the academy The final holiday programme, which received growing. They have helped cement great feedback in the survey mentioned MCA’s place as a cornerstone in the earlier, took place from the 27th to the 30th local community. of May. 163 children, nine from MCA, attended this camp, with 94% from the Several parents found it particularly target postcodes. The RW Street Dance helpful in managing their schedules. School returned again to host another With jobs to attend, the holidays can be ‘Street Dance and Drama’ camp, this time a difficult period, so they were very One with the help of the MCA Creative Arts team. appreciative of the schemes. Activities such as trampolining and parent said “The staff were excellent, skateboarding returned as well for the and I am so grateful for the camp due to ‘Health and Wellbeing’ camp, this time being a single mother, and my son is an joined by a cooking course. The final camp only child, and the camp gave him an on offer was new to the programme, and opportunity to be around other children was called ‘Around the World’. This also and to learn new skills which will help included a cooking course, but focused on him in life.” Another parent said “it different cultural recipes. The camp looked would be good if you did earlier starts at styles of cultural arts and crafts as well, for working parents, even if it is allowing children to create things that they’d chargeable.” normally only get to see on television. This demonstrates that parents in the community see the academy as a safe and trustworthy place for their children to go, which also has the added benefits of teaching them life skills that are not always taught in primary or secondary education. Another parent emphasised this point by saying “I feel very comfortable in allowing my son to attend your holiday schemes. He really Watch the amazing MCA WHIT Holiday Club enjoys the activities, and when he does Film; cookery, we do the same thing at home which is great as it all contributes to his http://mca.realsmartcloud.com/category/s life skills.” chool-holiday-programmes/
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Silchester Drive | Harpurhey | Manchester | M40 8NT manchestercommunicationacademy.com admin@mca.manchester.sch.uk | 0161 202 0161