Holiday Club Supports Families Across Newcastle

At Seven Stories, it’s our mission to put stories at the heart of every childhood. Building and delivering engaging workshops for families from a range of socio-economic backgrounds and cultures sees us work towards this goal and thus, we’re passionate about participating in Newcastle Council’s Holiday Activity Fund (HAF) throughout school holidays.

Having delivered multiple successful Holiday Clubs since Spring 2022, we’re now seeing lots of families returning to the programme each school holiday while finding lots of new families join us who may have never visited Seven Stories previously despite living in our nearby vicinity.

We appreciate that barriers to accessing cultural centres, museums and galleries aren’t simply just economic. Despite the removal of our entry fee in early 2022, we understand that there are still many local families who don’t see Seven Stories as a place for them.

Through the Holiday Club and support of Newcastle Council, we’re able to open our doors to children who may not have felt confident to visit us in the past, and thus we’re able to provide an exciting and educational experience for more families. Seven Stories is a place for everyone and in being part of this programme, we want to continue breaking down barriers to accessing storytelling, arts engagement and cultural enrichment for all.

Our Holiday Club provides a friendly, safe and inclusive environment. In guiding participants through our galleries and exhibitions and engaging in informative activities, we aim to inspire and ignite a love for books and reading, while supporting literacy development and reading for pleasure initiatives outside of the classroom.

Delivery

Each session focuses around books and storytelling with an overall theme for the week. We take the time to explore our wonderful building, interact with our galleries and exhibitions, participate in scavenger hunts and in some of our public programme offers too.

Sessions also include time for crafts, mindfulness activities and indoor and outdoor physical activities. Our kitchen team lead fun food activities (e.g. fruit salad, green salad), teaching children and adults valuable food life skills.