Behind the Inspection Rating: Club makes mess into a virtue

Messy Monsters Holiday Club, Peterborough – Out-of-school provision – Inspected October 2013

The Messy Monsters Holiday Club lives up to its name. The club's owner Becky Dix is a strong believer in messy play and so making a mess is all part of the fun.

"Every child loves to be messy at some point, don't they? Whether it's with their food or play, so I just thought Messy Monsters and that was the vision," says Dix, who set up the club with her own money as a sideline to her term-time job as manager of Woodston Nursery. "We do a lot of messy play at my nursery and I wanted to bring that across so we have all sorts of messy play."

The results are activities that, in addition to cleaner activities, range from clay modelling to the shaving foam fight that Ofsted's inspector encountered when she assessed the club in October.

Shaving foam battles are a big favourite, says Dix: "We had a girl, she was about 11, and she absolutely loved it. She was playing with shaving foam all day and literally had a bath in it. The next day she was like: 'Mum! I've got to take spare clothes, I want to play messy play again!' When else does an 11-year-old get to play in messy play? They don't, but these are things that even older children think 'wow that's fun'."

Language skills

While letting children have a blast lies at the heart of the club's work, there's more going on beneath the surface as reflected in the good rating it landed from Ofsted.

The club's four staff, three of whom have Level 3 or above childcare qualifications, have all undergone "Every child a talker" training that they use to help children develop their language skills by encouraging them to talk about the things they are doing.

Each week, Messy Monsters also sets a theme that provides opportunities for learning through play whether its exploring the life-cycle of chickens by caring for chicks during animals week or the pirates week, where the children built a pirate ship out of cardboard boxes.

Ofsted also liked the way the club used three toy animals to address behaviour issues among its younger children. "We've got a teddy, a crocodile and a monkey-looking teddy - Amy, Snappy and George," says Dix. "Amy is a really shy teddy, Snappy is not very nice and George is just normal. We role play with them about how the children behave, so if it's getting really noisy in the club we'd say that Amy is really scared because it's too noisy for her or if there's an incident like biting or pinching we use Snappy biting George to ask the children what they think they need to do, say sorry, that sort of thing."

While it's early days for Messy Monsters, Dix is hopeful it can cement itself as a popular service for local parents.

"There was nothing in our local area outside term time and the feedback from parents was positive so I thought I've just got to go for it," she says. "Obviously any business in its first year doesn't do extremely well because there's a lot of outgoings, but on Christmas Eve we were open until six and had 15 children, so it was busy. Now we've got a good Ofsted rating hopefully we can work towards outstanding at the next one and get towards full numbers of children. I would love to get the maximum number of children in there."

Fact File

• Name: Messy Monsters Holiday Club
• Location: Peterborough
• Description: The Messy Monsters Holiday Club opened its doors in summer 2013 and operates from within Belsize Community Centre in the Woodston area of Peterborough. The club has four members of staff and has 22 children on its roll. The club opens Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm during school holidays. As well as space inside the community centre, the club has access to the centre's enclosed outdoor play area.
• Number of children: Up to 35 boys and girls aged two to 16
• Ofsted inspection reference number: EY462686

HELPFUL HINTS

Do your market research. The first thing you need to make sure is that families will use a holiday club, says Messy Monsters Holiday Club owner Becky Dix. "We're open 8am to 6pm so it's a 10-hour day and rent is a lot of money and I have to pay staff wages and things like that," she says. "So you need to check the area out and whether a holiday club is needed and will be used."

Leaflet widely. Messy Monsters did not have much money to advertise its service so getting its leaflets in front of parents was important. "I made my own leaflets and gave them to Woodston Primary School to put in children's book bags and did leaflet drops in other schools in the local area," says Dix. "I also took some to children's centres and the local shops in the area."

Nurture young staff. "As well as qualified staff I advertised for volunteers and students as well," says Dix. "I think it is really important to do that because people need to start somewhere and I want to give people that chance. That's where I started out too."