For most parents, as school holidays draw near, be it end of term or half term, finding activities to keep the little ones engaged if there are no holiday trips planned is a pretty daunting task. As such, frantic searches for holiday camps, be it academic, sporty, musical or theatrical begin and it is a herculean task to figure out which are better than others. Listed under the subsections of this post are a few that may go some way to making that task easier.

I have tried to divide them up according to what they focus on. i.e. academic, cognitive development, social development etc. These sections are then subdivided accordingly in the hope that this makes the process of choosing from what is out there a little bit easier.

Things you need to watch out for, when choosing a camp are as follows:

Whether or not your child’s personality fits in with the activities on offer

Based on their personality, whether or not the camp has the resources to cater for a shy/outgoing kid or not.

Whether you feel the  adults v the number of children is adequate to provide the kind of supervision you are happy with for your child or not.

If you have a child with any kind of need, be it a special need or not, it is always better to be upfront when booking so that the administrators can tell you and record what you say, making sure that your child is well looked after. For example, if yours is a little one who takes a while to settle, is very shy or takes time to make friends, then it is always best to tell the teachers before they start. You can also judge from the reaction of the administrators, whether or not this is the right camp for your little one.

Whether they have somewhat of a structured plan for each activity.

Whether or not the itinerary fits in with your little one’s concentration span.

How many breaks the kids have.

What the supervision is during those breaks. (You don’t want your child to end up in tears at the end of the day because someone stole their lunch and no one saw what happened!! Trust me, it happens!).

It is always good to sign your child up for a very different activities as this is a time you can open their minds to sampling experiences they have not had before. You could really mix it up. From experience, I find that the more varied the activity, you engage them in, the more their little minds develop.

For example, if you sign them up for a tennis camp one week, it might be fun to do a circus training the next. Or if you  send them digging away on a forest camp trip one day, send them to a music camp the next. You’ll be amazed at what they pick up and in how short a time.

Happy reading. As always, if you think of anything that I have not covered here, please feel free to post your comments and I would be happy to add them on.