Practical information for visit organisers

Practical information for visit organisers

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 online bookings page you will be able to view our availability and book a session direct from there.  The cost is £5 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.