Play Services: supporting the community

As part of our offering and under the brand of our parent charity, P3, we offer after-school Play Schemes at six primary schools across London, as well as two breakfast clubs, a lunch club and two holiday Play programmes. Our Play programme employs 23 staff and supports 665 families. Our core focus is on supporting families who are working or who are in full-time education and giving access to play opportunities to families who can’t afford mainstream extracurricular activities.  

Our Play Centres, operating across six London primary schools, have been focusing on offering more create activities, which have given children the opportunity to explore their creative abilities and get messy. The children in our St Clements and St James Play Centre designed and created 2020 calendars while our other Play Centres explored ways to make sensory play dough using glitter, essential oils and food colouring; we’ve even had a Lego competition where children have displayed their construction ideas, creating cities, ships and high towers.

For Christmas we held parties in each of our Play Centres, giving the children the chance to dance, play games and eat lots of healthy party foods that they brought in to share. We were very fortunate to have received donations of toys and clothes from a local private school for Christmas gifts.

We run at least one Play Centre over most holidays, with our February half-term Play Centres taking place at Avondale Park Primary and ARK Atwood Academy. We supported almost 100 children across both centres, offering sports and art activities to children that otherwise would have nothing to do over half-term.