Holding and open day for local schools and clubs- ideas needed..

[charlie76]

We are trying to get the local schools and clubs to come to us to learn to ride. We are offering a special raye of £10 per child per hour or £15 for 2 hours. I think its a good idea as we know there is a nation of overweight children and its a good way to keep fit and learn about body awareness.
I have emailed the local clubs and schools but think it might be a good idea to invite them to an open day.
How best would I advertise it and what kind of things would you include bearing in mind these are non horsey teachers??

 

[trundle]

What a FANTASTIC idea. I wish i lived near you!

I would make up some posters about the open day and send them to all the schools, Brownies, Cubs, churches and youth groups locally, and ask them to put them up on their notice boards. Local libraries would also be a good bet.

Pitching to non-horsy adults can be tricky. Non-horsy people's perception of riding is that it is expensive, elitist and smelly! Stress the health benefits of riding and spending time outdoors with horses. Emphasise that riding is fun for everyone, both boys and girls, and find some way to let them know that you don't have to spend a fortune on lots of expensive equipment.

What sort of thing would you do on the open day? Could you offer 20 minute taster "lessons", demos (mounted games always a good draw for kids - they watch the hurtling around and decide they want to do that!), some hands-on stuff like pony grooming if you have some saintly angelic ponies that will stand all day, etc. If the weather holds, organise a BBQ as well, and depending on the unflappability of your ponies and the space you have available, you could even have a bouncy castle!

Basically, you want to make your yard seem like a welcoming, friendly place inhabited by fun, normal people. Make it somewhere that kids will WANT to come to again. You'll need some basic rules like no running or shouting around the horses, but try and keep the rules to an absolute minimum for the day.

Best of luck, it sounds like great fun and a really good opportunity to promote your yard.

 

[noblesteed]

I am a teacher myself and have a few ideas for you.
The best time to hold an open event for teachers would be after school time ie 4pm. They will perhaps tie it in with a staff meeting. Teachers tend to prefer to keep their weekends 'school-free' as they have so much paperwork to do after school.
By law we have to have a risk assessment before can take pupils anywhere. So it would be a good idea for you to produce one that you can email email directly to schools/clubs.
If you are wanting schools to bring pupils during school time you would need to get in touch with their PE co-ordinator so they can include it in their outdoor ed provision. Otherwise it will eat into curriculum time which is a big no-no.
You could run it as an after school club but bear in mind teachers don't get paid for doing these, although many will be willing to do so voluntarily, so make sure it ties in with the end of the school day eg 4pm-5pm.
Bear in mind also that transport for pupils is expensive so local schools would be your best bet. We find that parents are also willing to help with transport.
Also, I'm sure you are aware that anyone working with children needs a CRB.
I would suggest your best course of action would be to get in touch with your local outdoor education centre. They have pots of money for outreach activities and most have their own transport for pupils, insurance etc, and you may find they want to use your centre regularly. I know our local outdoor ed centre is working with the local secondary to set up an after-school horse riding club at the moment, part-funded by the Local Authority.

 

[charlie76]

Thank you so much for the information, I am going to take bits of everyones ideas and get something organised.

 

[Clannad48]

I think you will be surprised how many teachers or school staff are horse people, by that I mean riders or parents of riders, I know of at least eight within a small area, perhaps because it means they can fit in competitions in the school holidays

 

[Kallibear]

Sounds like a lovely idea, but I'd say an hours riding is far too much for a total novice.

We used to do something simialar at RDA open days and it worked brillaintly.

Depending on how many ponies you have and how many helpers you could offer an hours 'slot' per child but only 15 or 20mins riding. Splint into three or 4 groups and rotated between the riding part, a couple of 'stable management' parts. Making sure they all get the 'safety and rules' talk beforehand. You could offer if for soemthing like £5 a child - that's a fair price for the riding (the stable management part is 'free') and affordable for everyone. It also means you can accomidate far more kids.

 

[Dubsie]

Our junior school has recently had a tie with a local riding school, and they offer an after school club for the yr 4 5 & 6 of the school (so the school gets brownie points for offering it as an after school club). They offer a 5 week 'riding and horse care' course at a special rate, obviously aimed at non-riders. Parents had to complete the standard new pupil form for the RS, plus detail any previous riding experience. Parents are also responsible for organising the children to get to the RS. The children were split into small groups of about 5 or 6 according to ablity/age, and each week had a riding lesson of 30 minutes and 30 mins stable management lesson (so they learnt about eg tacking up, feeds, grooming, mucking out etc etc) and a lesson about horses generally (breeds, colours/markings, with fact sheets for eg colouring in or quizzes to answer). At the end the children were given certificates and a rosette, plus info about forthcoming events in half term/school holidays, and regular lessons. They all loved it and many went on to book regular lessons. I wouldn't have said they learnt masses, but they had good fun and mastered the basics of walk and trot.

I would also look at the Brownie (and Guide) syllabus for the Riding (or equivalent) badge ( and maybe Cubs and Scouts too if they do one), and see if you can derive a short course which will cover the stable management requirements for the badge as well as the riding, and see if you can offer a course over several weeks or over half term or something, with a test at the end, and offer it to each pack or unit locally, on a first come first served basis so you fill the spaces.

Finally, when I was in the 6th form (at Kendrick) several of us decide we were bored with the sports options on offer (swimming if we were out of favour with the PE teacher who allocated the squash to her favourites), and about 6 or 7 of us organised (through your RS actually, it was waaay before your time in about 1977!) an afternoons hacking at a reduced rate each week, which we loved. Could you offer it to local secondary schools 6th form reduced rate riding during term time?

Also if you wanted to acquire extra term time customers, you could consider offering a special rate lunchtime lesson or hack to local larger employers, or a special 'mums rate' to eg NCT or mother and toddler groups or nurseries locally, for mums to get away for an hour or so to do something fun - look in Families magazine for ideas of who to contact.