SkillZONE offers more than just an interesting school trip; the lessons students learn in our interactive village could be lifesaving for your pupils, helping them to stay safe around water, roads and the home and introducing them to the consequences of offending and unsafe online activity.

Unintentional injuries are one of the leading causes of death and serious injury in children, accounting for more than 2 million attendances at A&E each year, leading to missed school days and potential long-term difficulties with concentration and cognitive function.  Many of these injuries are foreseeable and therefore preventable especially if children are able to assess risk and think about the consequences of their choices.

SkillZONE helps your pupils recognise dangers and dilemmas in everyday situations and empowers them to make good choices about their own safety. The sessions we offer can be used as part of your evidence for GHLL awards and demonstrate to OFSTED the commitment you are making to your students’ overall health and wellbeing.

Visit evaluation – our visitors complete a quiz before and after their visit.  Analysis of these results shows that visitors are making safer choices after their session in the village.

Feedback from group leaders – an online survey is completed after each visit.  Amongst the questions group leaders are asked are:

Very realistic and informative, thank you.
March 2020

Much better way for children to learn through real scenarios than in classroom. Children all really engaged.
February 2020

A great facility with super staff who engaged the children brilliantly – thank you.
December 2019

Always fantastic! Kids love it and talk about it for years after!
September 2019

Fantastic real life scenarios approached in an accessible child friendly way.
July 2019

The staff were incredibly helpful and sensitive to the needs of the children. Thank you.  
June 2019

What wonderful volunteers, thank you so much. Please continue to help us educate children with these real world scenarios. It is much appreciated.
June 2019

The visit has covered more real life situations which the curriculum doesn’t always cover. I think all children should attend talks and tours here to build on their knowledge and understanding. 
May 2019

I would like to thank the team for such an amazing visit the children were engaged throughout and learnt lots. They were also more confident in their answers to the quiz at the end. The SkillZONE team were all very professional and gave the children the best time
May 2019 

The staff were very helpful, polite, knowledgeable and professional. Thank you.
April 2019 

Brilliant volunteers and facilities
May 2019

Excellent learning centre. Couldn’t fault anything.
October 2018 

Totally brilliant experience. Has made me realise how unsafe some of my pupils are!
October 2018

Lovely engaging knowledgeable adults!
November 2018

It’s my first time at Skillzone and I cannot express how impressed I was.  The pace and variety was great all the guides were patient and willing to answer any questions couldn’t have been better, thank you.
November 2018 

Morning sessions start at 10am and finish at 12pm.  Afternoon sessions start at 1pm and finish at 3pm.  We can run shorter sessions but the full cost of the visit will still be charged – PLEASE CONTACT US.   We are unable to offer sessions starting at 11am as this means we are unable to offer an afternoon session afterwards.

• • • Please arrive at SkillZONE 10 minutes before your start time to allow for getting off the coach, visits to the toilet and name badges to be issued. We regret that it is not possible for us to extend the finish time of the visit: in the event of late arrival we reserve the right to reduce the duration of your visit by cutting one or more (as necessary) of your scenario choices to ensure that the finish time is adhered to.  Please be assured that we will do this reluctantly, but this is necessary to avoid disruption to bookings later in the day.
    • The visit begins with a short briefing and quiz. Participants are then divided into small groups and will be taken around your chosen scenarios by our trained SkillZONE guides.

At the end of the visit, there is a short debrief including a repeat of the quiz.

• • • We aim to have about 5-7 children per group – it would be helpful if you could divide the children into groups for us as you know which children work best together (or who are best kept apart!). Please bear in mind that we may need to adjust group sizes on the day, for example in the event of any absence of our personnel.
    • All our staff and volunteers have passed an enhanced DBS check for working with children and vulnerable adults.
    • We do not normally require a member of your staff to accompany our guides. Please provide any child who requires 1:1 support with their usual level of support.  Should you wish your staff to shadow the session we would please ask that each group is shadowed by a maximum of 1 accompanying adult (excluding any 1:1 support as above).
    • Accompanying adults are politely requested to let the guides take the lead and to let the participants work out their own responses to the guides’ questions and directions. If anyone in your group has special needs which would make this impractical, please contact us in advance of your visit so that we can discuss the support required.  Parent helpers are requested not to accompany their own children in the village.
    • We hope that children will feel able to be truthful with our guides about their experiences and choices. If we hear anything that we consider to be a safeguarding issue then we will inform you before you leave the centre.

If you visit our bookings page you will be able to view our availability and book a session direct from there.  The cost is £5.50 per pupil/student, with no charge for staff.  If your school uses the GCC journal system we can arrange payment from there – otherwise we can either invoice the school or you can pay by cash or cheque on arrival, unfortunately we are unable to take card payments.