Holiday club and dyspraxia: what the activity leaders need to know
Holiday club and dyspraxia: 5 things to share with the activity leaders in 30 seconds so a day of activities stays a good memory.
In brief
A holiday club relies on a team of leaders, often young, who change every session and who have received no information about the children before the morning. For a dyspraxic child, this uncertainty can turn a day of activities into a string of quiet humiliations. This article offers the five pieces of information to share in 30 seconds, and the attitude to expect from the adults so that dyspraxia does not become a target for mockery.
Why an activity centre is a world of its own for a child with dyspraxia
At school, the teacher knows your child. At the holiday club, almost no one knows them, and the day is made up of physical and hands-on activities, exactly where dyspraxia shows most: fine motor skills, coordination, spatial orientation, handling objects.
Without information beforehand, the leader may read the difficulties as:
- deliberate clumsiness or lack of interest;
- a lack of effort to be called out;
- opposition to the rules.
The child, for their part, feels they do less well than the others without managing to explain why. A few seconds of briefing are enough to avoid this spiral.
The 5 pieces of information to pass on to the activity leaders
Give the activity team a simple message, in five points:
- the child has dyspraxia, which affects fine movements and coordination;
- they understand everything, their intellectual abilities are not in question;
- they need more time on hands-on activities, without being rushed;
- they may refuse a specific physical activity (cycling, ball games) without being pressed;
- apparent clumsiness is never a provocation.
Five lines, not a file. It fits on a quarter of a page.
Risky activities, refuge activities
Not all activities carry the same weight:
- To watch out for: crafts involving cutting, fast team sports, timed activities, competitive games of skill.
- Safe-haven activities: free drawing, reading, calm board games, simple cooking workshops, nature observation.
Ask the team to offer a choice between one activity and another whenever possible, and to offer the fallback without making it a public event. The aim is not to avoid all difficulty, but to adjust the level of effort so that the day does not turn into a series of visible failures.
Pacing: meals, transitions, fatigue
Tiredness is invisible in many dyspraxic children, until it suddenly spills over. The tipping points are almost always the same:
- mid-morning, after two activities run back to back without a break;
- at mealtime, which requires coordination and independence (cutlery, tray, queue);
- after the nap or quiet time, where getting going again takes extra effort.
So that the activity team, which changes often, has a clear profile of how your child functions without having to call you at the start of each session, some parents use a myHandiQR profile: a single QR code that leads to a profile readable in a few seconds, with an explanation tailored to the role of the person who scans it. You can create one here: create a myHandiQR profile.
Keeping the link alive between family and activity team
A single meeting at the start of the year is not enough. The activity team rotates, and the collective memory of a holiday club is very short.
To keep the connection alive:
- introduce yourself to the director or manager as well as the leaders, as it is they who ensure continuity;
- spend two minutes at drop-off and pick-up whenever possible;
- report any feedback from your child within the week, not at the end of the session.
What changes the quality of the welcome is not the training of the leaders, which they have rarely received on specific needs. It is the regular presence of the parents and the availability of a clear profile that each new adult can read in a few seconds.
Key takeaways
- The holiday club is a setting of its own for a dyspraxic child: a changing team, hands-on and physical activities.
- Five pieces of information to share with the leaders: dyspraxia, intellectual abilities intact, more time, possible refusal, clumsiness not deliberate.
- Tell apart activities to watch out for (cutting, fast sports, timed tasks) and safe-haven activities (drawing, calm games, simple cooking).
- Anticipate the tipping points: mid-morning, mealtime, after quiet time.
- Keep the connection alive with the director or manager, regular presence, feedback reported within the week.
What you have just read, you should not have to go over again from the start.
Every new school year, every new colleague, every medical appointment: you have to start all over again. Find the right words. Hope to be understood. myHandiQR puts an end to that. You write it once. You will no longer start over from the beginning at every encounter.