Out of School Clubs – Breakfast, After-school and in the Holidays at Hopscotch

In School Term Time a before-school and after school club is in operation. And, the holiday club operates during the Easter and the summer months and on ‘in-service’ days. Our holiday, after school and the breakfasts club operates from Tuphall Road./p>

Breakfast Club - before school
The breakfast club operates from our premises in Tuphall Road. Children may be dropped off there before school where they can have a simple breakfast, enjoy the computer suite, watch the TV or videos, read or just chill out. The bus leaves Tuphall Road at about 8.30 to enable us to deliver the children to the local schools in our own mini busses in good time.

After School Club
After school children will be picked up from the local schools, and brought to our after school clubs. In the evening parents collect their children from our Tuphall Road premises after 5.45 pm.

A simple snack is available when the children arrive and the children may do homework, participate in supervised free play and local outings or simply ‘chill out’ in our comfortable lounge area.

The Holiday Club
During the Easter and long summer vacation, a Holiday programme is in operation that will appeal to parents requiring full time day care. Our holiday club days are action packed. Children are dropped off at the nursery at Tuphall Road from 8 am and we depart by 10 am. We make every effort to take the children out in our own buses whether or not the weather is poor. We have a list of things to do for each weather option and for each day in the week. We also research what is on offer for the children throughout the summer from Glasgow City, North and South Lanarkshire Councils.

In good weather we apply lots of sunscreen, take a picnic, snacks, lots of drinking water, some games equipment and make the following visits - Chatelherault Park; Falls of Clyde, New Lanark; Strathaven Park; Craignethan Castle, Crossford; Lanark Loch; Tinto Hill; Calderglen; Clyde Action fun in the Park at Drumpellier park; Pond dipping, booked rain or shine at Chatelherault park; Strathclyde park; Motherwell Heritage Centre, fun day; Biggar Park; Water fun day, - bring water pistols and a change of clothes; Glasgow green, visit the seaside; Safari park and Clyde walk way. Many of these parks also have events going on where our children can join in or just play. The walk up Tinto hill was quite challenging. It is well over 1000 feet high. Everyone made it, including the staff and they all had their picnic at the top.

In bad weather, depending on the visit we may take a picnic. Some visit centres have places where the children can have a picnic even in inclement weather and offer a whole host of things to do during the summer break. We visit Almond Valley; Hunter’s House at East Kilbride; Motherwell Heritage Centre; the Burrell Collection – booked events; Summerlee Country Park where they have themed days such as an old fashioned washday and traditional games; Police museum (bookable Mausoleum tour); John Hastie Museum in Strathaven; Calderglen drop in arts & crafts workshop; Transport Museum; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum; Cinema which is free provided the children do a simple book review; Ice Skating; David Livingston Centre and Bowling.

Club eligibility
The Summer club is available to all our after school and breakfast club children and anyone else who has completed primary 1. The Kinder club is for children about to go to school. We make this distinction for the benefit of the younger children who have not yet experienced the rough and tumble of the school playground. They can often be frightened by the natural exuberance of the older ones, so we take care to offer the little ones additional support. We don’t want to put them off school! It is not of course such a change for those with older brothers or sisters. Whilst we define our boundaries of acceptable behaviour, and ask our parents to support us in this, we try to give the children as much freedom as possible. It is their holiday and we want them to remember it as a good, challenging and enjoyable experience

Food Service
Parents may choose to provide all food and drink for their children or choose the with food option from Hopscotch. Chambers Catering provides most of the food in that option. Parents choosing to provide food for their children need to remember that we are on the move and to provide plenty to eat and drink to keep the children going throughout the day.