As a departure from the IT industry, I am currently running a school holiday programme. We have just completed the first week, and have one week to run.
The person I employed into my key role as coordinator (which means, person who deals with the kids and also figures out how to keep them entertained) suggested a programme of activities, which so far has proved to be balanced between keeping the kids interested and not over-tiring them. We are travelling away from school on one day each week (this is logistically challenging, but we can manage a day and the kids do enjoy being out, though they are exhausted at the end of it), and on another day each week doing some structured activities that are designed to challenge the children (a challenge where they had to build things out of newspaper and string, and a day of baking and making food). These are interspersed with sessions of playing games and fun activities like a talent show and in-house movies.
The administrative side is reasonably complex, but can be figured out with a bit of investigation. The OSCAR Foundation (Out of School Care and Recreation) has a comprehensive set of material which I found was very helpful, and also, having used holiday programmes myself, I found I had a pretty good idea of what I needed in the way of contact lists, sign-in sheets, attendance registers, and procedures relating to various things such as what to do if a child does not turn up, what happens if a child is unwell, and so forth. Keeping track of the finances is vitally important – any money left over is taxable earnings so it’s very important to keep accurate records for the Inland Revenue Department.
We also run ‘after programme’ care, which is much more relaxed, and usually involves a snack, followed by a movie which the tired ones blob out in front of, and the rest drift in and out of, going outside to skip rope or kick a ball around, or stay inside playing chess, drawing, reading, playing one of the myriad board games like Battleships, or with the older ones, discussing who is going out with whom, and who’s just broken up (yes, these are mostly the 10- and 11-year-olds). Anyone who doesn’t think kids are growing up more quickly these days obviously doesn’t have any young ones.