Eight-year-old POD is heading to a Barracudas Activity Day Camp for the third time this summer. She’s always really excited about the varied activities on offer and the camp she attends has a pool as well which is an added bonus! POD loves that she can pick between two activities for each of the six daily sessions. This means one day could include activities like tennis, cheerleading and archery and another aqua slide, pop lacrosse and foot rounders! As a working parent, it’s the best feeling in the world picking your daughter up to hear she’s had “the best day ever”. The journey home usually comprises of her excitedly talking about what she’s been doing, the friends she’s made and how great the team are.
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About Barracudas
A bit of background
If you’ve not come across them before, Barracudas Activity Day Camps have been established for 26 years. They offer a whopping 80 activities during the summer (included in the price) and cater for children aged from 4.5 years up to 14 years. The camps are largely located in the East, South East and Southern England – open during the summer school holidays and the Easter holidays. Each camp is selected for its high-quality facilities. The one POD goes to is excellent and has activity equipment with bags of indoor and outdoor space. This means if it’s a rainy day, each age group has ample space for activities inside. We’re lucky in that we have five Barracudas Activity Day Camps within ten miles of us.
As you’d expect, Barracudas has a rigorous registration process with an effective sign-in and sigh-out procedure. The environment feels safe with the staff thorough and knowledgable. POD has always been very well looked after and I can’t collect her without all the right information. This may sound basic but I managed to collect my daughter from a (non-Barracudas) camp last year without giving our password! The staff are always friendly, positive and happy plus they’re DBS qualified. Over 70% are fully or nearly qualified teaching professionals plus there are specialist instructors for the likes of archery, fencing, motorsports and swimming. Each child is assigned a Keyworker during their time at camp who is responsible for a child’s welfare.
What activities are on offer?
Barracudas Activity Day Camps offer the best experiences for children, they really do. POD is full of energy and the structure of the sessions means she can select sport-based or creative activities to suit how she feels. There are breaks in the morning and afternoon with lunch in-between so there’s rest time built in if she opts for all of the sportier options! POD always enjoys water-based activities and the likes of go-karting, archery and dodgeball. There are seven age groups at Barracudas, all with fish names of course, with the range of activities age-appropriate.
New timetables are put up daily so the children can pick from two activities per session. There is a wet timetable too if the weather doesn’t play ball. Barracudas is the only camp that has so much on, it properly wears POD out. Last time she attended she fell asleep in the car on the way home twice. This never happens!
4.5 years (early years) to 5 to 6 years
The early years’ and 5 to 6 years groups have a maximum of 24 children each with 3 staff per group. The timetable for the younger group is more visual so children can easily select what they want to do and there are more regular breaks. The timetable for the 5 to 6-year-olds is more grown-up as the children are at school and have more independence. The timetables for children aged 4.5 years to 6 years might include mask making, inflatable fun and skittleball to tag rugby, Billy Hunt and parachute games. You can view an example timetable for these age groups here.
7 to 10 years
This is the age group POD is in which provides children with independence, in a safe environment, and of course loads of fun activities! The groups typically comprise of 24 children with 2-3 members of staff depending on how busy the camp is (plus the specialist staff for activities like swimming, archery and go-karting). You can view an example timetable for children aged 7 to 10 years here. We’ve also been sent some timetables in the past, I really do enjoy seeing what’s on offer and what POD has selected to do.
11 to 14 years
This age group is all about developing new talents and interests with a range of activities that span from quad bikes, basketball and fencing to tennis, lacrosse and netball. You can view an example timetable for children aged 11 to 14 years here.
How is each day organised?
Arrival and collection
We’ve found Barracudas to be really well organised, even on the first day of registration when it will inevitably be busier. The standard hours of camp are 8:30am to 5:30pm. Children can be dropped off between 8:30am and 9:30am and collected between 4:30pm and 5:30pm. We pay a small fee for early drop-off (from 8am) and there’s an option for late pick up (by 6pm) if required.
Activity sessions
The six sessions run each day between 9:30am and 4:30pm. Typically one of these might be more sports-focused with the other creative. All the sessions are included in the price and there is no need to book any sessions in advance, Barracudas does it all for you. Due to the varied range of activities, we usually send POD with a change of clothes, swim gear, a towel, suncream, a hat and a packed lunch with snacks for break time. Barracudas does provide a checklist of what’s required which is really helpful so we don’t forget something. We usually load up POD’s packed lunch as she gets hungrier with all the activities she has on!
Theme days
We do forget to do this (POD loves an opportunity for dress-up!) but Barracudas runs theme days every Friday. They are just a bit of fun for the children that fancy joining in. This summer the theme days include Monochrome Mayhem (9th August), Billy’s Beach Party (16th August), Masquerade Madness (23rd August) and Sensational Seasons (30th August).
What if they don’t know anyone?
Making friends
This is always a big one for us as POD doesn’t have any siblings. She’s generally a confident child but can be shy at first (for ten minutes!) when in a group situation and doesn’t know anyone. That said it doesn’t take her, and other children in the same situation, long to get to know anyone at Barracudas! The staff do a superb job of making sure they’re all having fun together. Last time POD was at Barracudas, she made 5 friends on her first day – 4 of which were there for the remainder of the week.
Skills Builders
If you have a child at Barracudas for the week, there are a range of specialist Skills Builder courses available (for an extra charge). These include: Swim School – a learn to swim course taught by qualified instructors. Lab rats – a fun scientific course for children aged 4½ to 8 Years with foaming volcanoes, growing crystals or creating bouncy balls! Motor Mania for children aged 7-13 who love quad bikes and go-karts. UpStage for children aged 7 to 13, is a drama based workshop covering improvisation, mime and movement along with character creation and stage make-up. We’ve not tried any of these yet but the learn to swim course would have been useful in the past and she’d no doubt love UpStage!
Why Barracudas?
When we first tested the water at Barracudas, we only booked a week as we weren’t sure how POD would get on. She had such an incredible time we had to book her in for the following week (even though we’d already paid for her to go to an alternative holiday camp – eek!). These days we just book Barracudas first because we know POD’s going to have the time of her life and with children her own age. It’s great for her to have that independence and experience activities she might not get to try otherwise. She’s already talking about swimming, archery and go-karting. I cannot wait to hear what she gets up to – we’ll see if she fancies doing some social videos about her day.
If you want to get a taste of what Barracudas Activity Day Camps are like, watch the video below. For more information, please visit the Barracudas website.
Disclaimer: We received free sessions at Barracudas Activity Day Camps in exchange for sharing our experiences. Opinions are as always our own.
