The main purpose of the group has been to build children’s confidence and to promote positive friendships and relationships. It has also had the added benefit of allowing the children to engage meaningfully within the community and give them an opportunity to have something to do in the afternoons once school has finished.

We have used the Hi 5 awards and/or the youth Scotland dynamic youth award as a basis for the work. By using the Hi5 and dynamic youth award framework attendees will receive a certificate for taking part as an acknowledgement of their achievement and in any older children’s case, credits rated on the Scottish credit and qualifications framework with the SQA.

We have been running with an outdoor theme with an aim to be closer to nature. This has included regular games and activities such as nature scavenger hunts, along with more structured activities including clearing an area of garden to use as a base area, building a scarecrow, pumpkin carving and den building. Our most recent activity was making clay animal models using our hands and sticks as tools for carving.

The current group will finish up over the next 2 weeks, with the next activity being fire safety and fire lighting along with cooking marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire.

The following week will see us meet up with this current group for the last time. We will go over all of the work they have done, and allow them to reflect on the various activities so that we can send off their information to allow them to receive their awards.

We have had great feedback from the children throughout.

One child said last week that;

‘I like the group, even if I’ve had a bad day at school, I know that if I have group I can come here and have fun’

We have future plans to run a further group in the new year.