😱😱😱 Easter Holidays

At Ignite!, many of our programmes work to achieve different outcomes in our theory of change - some are more focused on nurturing children’s confidence communication skills (‘Taking Control’), others focus on inspiring creativity in young people (‘Unlocking Creativity’,) others focus more on connecting partners to create more opportunities for young people (‘Coming Together’). 

Some our programmes truly work across all three outcomes, and our Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme this Easter is a great example. The programme ran along similar lines to 2024, with one day of delivery on-site in asylum-seeker accommodations followed by a trip out the next day, repeated across the two sites over two weeks. Here are just a few snippets of the programme's impact...

‘Coming Together’ 

Both weeks we visited Wollaton Hall, and we organised with the Nottingham City Museums and Galleries team to take part in their ‘Build The Change’ workshops funded by LEGO through their partnership with the National History Museum.  The children also had the opportunity to have a quick tour of the inside of the museum, where they were absolutely transfixed and delighted by the taxidermy birds and animals, the fossils and rocks and the dinosaur room. The children’ amazement at the animal heads around the bird room can only be described by the 😱 emoji. 

A huge thank you goes to the team at Wollaton Hall, who worked with us to provide an opportunity for the children to connect with local heritage, learning and green space during their Easter holidays.

‘Unlocking Creativity’

Our sessions both in the sites and on the trips gave children a wide range of creative tools to choose from: building with Lego, drawing, open play. Knowing we were going to be taking part in the Lego workshops at Wollaton Hall, we brought in our own Lego to the first sessions, and the children started by carefully following the instructions before unleashing their creativity with their own builds. This was followed up the next day when the children created some brilliantly imaginative designs for green architecture in the Wollaton Hall Lego workshops. 

This term in particular our creative practitioner Claire Finn brought her drama background to bear through drama games, mime and performance, which allowed the children many ways of expressing their own imagination and ideas. 

‘Taking Control’

When registering children the week before we began the programme, one child who we’d met before mentioned again that she wants to be a fashion designer, showing us her sketches. Nurturing children’s passions and building on their ideas is key to the way we design sessions, so we decided that the first day’s activity would involve bringing in lots of fabric and a sewing kit to make costumes. With the help of some of the mums who brought their own impressive skills to the activity, the child made her yellow and black dress design, whilst other children made hats, capes, ninja masks, which some of them wore on the trip the next day too.

The children then decided they wanted to create their own show in their costumes (including a superb magic show), which they did with support from the team creating a safe space for all children to get up and have a go performing in front of their peers. 

The Holiday Activities and Food Programme is funded by the Department for Education through Nottingham City Council.