Ready, Set, Launch: A Guide to Starting Your Own Kids Activity Club
How do you launch a kids activity club?
So you’ve decided to launch your very own kids activity club. How exciting! Launching a kid's activity business can be a fun and rewarding venture, but it requires careful planning and execution. Lucky for you, this blog will give you some helpful steps to ensure that your kids activity club is a success!
How to define your niche
You probably already know what activity you’d like to provide, so now it’s time to define your niche. In order to stand out from other clubs, you will need to know what differentiates your club. Try jotting down a list of what makes your club unique.
Some examples might including:
- [.green__text]One-to-one sessions[.green__text]
- [.pink__text]Specialised classes for certain age groups[.pink__text]
- [.blue__text]Pricing or value proposition[.blue__text]
[.orange__text]Top tip: Knowing what makes your club stand out is what will help you with marketing and branding further down the road too![.orange__text]
Do you need to register your club?
After school kids activity clubs are generally exempt from having to register with Ofsted. This is true if the purpose of your club is to teach kids an activity, like dance, gymnastics, swimming or football. If, however, the main purpose of your club is childcare and you offer lots of different activities within your club, you will be running an out-of-school club, which does need to be registered with Ofsted.
Should you insure your club?
An important step to ensure everyone’s safety and comfort at your kids club, is having insurance. It’s a great idea to try and find insurance that covers your specific activity type too. If you are linked to a membership organisation or governing body, these can help you find appropriate insurance for your club. Remember to find out what requirements or restrictions your insurance puts on your club. For instance, they might ask you to adhere to a certain staff-child ratio.
What policies are there on after school clubs?
Despite there not being any official policies or procedures that are put on kids activity clubs, it’s a great idea to develop and maintain some of your own policies. For example, you should consider setting up a Health and Safety policy, a Safeguarding policy, an Uncollected or missing child policy, and a policy for Administering Medication. It’s also super important that you have essential details about each child like emergency contact details or medical information nearby in case you need it. You should also keep accurate records of the kid’s attendance. Your online software, like ClassForKids, should provide you with this function!
How do you conduct market research?
Next, you’ll want to conduct some research. What competitors do you have? How do they run their kids' activity clubs? Who is your target market? How are your competitors marketing themselves?
It’s a good idea to get really granular with these things. Why? Because you have to understand how your target market thinks, how they make decisions about their kids' activities, even what they sound like and how they act. This will help you figure out how your club fits into their lives and how you can adjust your club to fit their needs!
How to devise a business plan
Based on what you learn from your research, you’ll now devise a business plan that outlines your goals, target market, marketing strategy, financial projections, and operational details. You will need to be specific and detailed. This is when you should consider how you will run your kids activity club: will you need to hire staff to teach the kids or will you do that yourself? Will you need [.blue__text]a booking and management system like ClassForKids?[.blue__text] You will want to spend some extra time on this step to minimise confusion or trouble later on!
[.orange__text]Looking for more details on what your business plan should contain?[.orange__text][.orange__text]Read our blog on how to create a dance business plan![.orange__text]
How to create a marketing strategy
Once you have a general plan for your kids activity club, you will want to plan out how to let kids and parents know about your club! That means that you’ll need a marketing strategy to determine how you will promote your club to reach your target market. This could include creating a website, social media presence, flyers, and attending community events. Consider where your target market hangs out and how they get their information. Are they likely to use the internet to learn more about your club? Or will a flyer at school be more eye-catching to them? Think about what will convince them that your club is the right fit for their child: maybe it’s the activity itself, your cost, your knowledge of the activity, or the location of your club! Whatever it is that makes your club unique in the eyes of your target market, you should be promoting that now!
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How to find and hire staff
Next, you will want to hire and train your staff, if you decide that you need them. You’ll have to decide what kind of person you would want on your team and what experience they will need to have. In our experience, it’s important to hire staff that you can trust, rely on and that echo the same ethos as your club. For instance, if you want your club to be known as a place for fun and learning, you wouldn’t want to hire someone that doesn’t reflect those things! And, hiring the right person for the job can even open you up to brand new opportunities - like franchising your club!
What qualifications and Training do you need?
Since your club most likely will not have to register with Ofsted, you won’t be required to have specific qualifications. However, you should keep in mind that many activities do have membership organisations or governing bodies that can point you in the direction of some training or qualifications that would b desirable for someone working in your field.
Although you and your teachers or staff members aren’t necessarily required to have any qualifications or training for running your kids club, there are lots of benefits to training yourself and your staff!
- [.pink__text]Taking some business courses will mean that you’ll understand the fundamentals in running and growing your kids activity club like a business[.pink__text]
- [.green__text]It’ll install more confidence in parents because they know that you and your staff know what you’re doing[.green__text]
- [.blue__text] Your staff members will feel capable and will feel they’re getting something back for their work[.blue__text]
- [.orange__text] If you train your staff properly, it will mean that you’ll be able to step back from the daily tasks in the future and leave the daily running of the club to your capable staff members[.orange__text]
It’s a really good idea to have many of your team members trained in first aid. They should also be aware of what to do in the case of an emergency. Keep in mind that certain activity types may have statutory requirements because of the nature of your activity. This is likely decided by governing bodies like Scottish Gymnastics.
What background checks are needed?
Because you run an activity club for kids which means that you’ll be spending time with children, you and all of your staff, including any volunteers, will need to go through a background check to ensure the kids’ safety. In England and Wales, this is an enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check, in Scotland, this will be carried out from Disclosure Scotland and if you’re in Northern Ireland, it’d carried out from Access NI. Keep in mind that these checks cannot be carried out on yourself and you may need the help of a membership organisation to carry out these checks.
Where to find funding for your club
We get it, financing your club on your own can complicate matters. Not to worry, there are lots of ways you can get help funding your club! Wether the purpose of the funding is to be able to welcome more kids through your doors or to upgrade your equipment, external financial help can be a great solution to your financial challenges.
[.blue__text]Read our blog to find out 7 ways you can secure funding for your club![.blue__text]
Now that you have taken the first steps towards getting your club launched, it's time to start getting the word out about your club and start taking bookings! The moment has come to let everyone know about your new business. Put up flyers, post about your new club on social media, look into collaborating with schools or nurseries and spread the amazing news wherever you can!
[.pink__text]Are you looking for more guidance? ClassForKids have worked with thousands of kids activity clubs. Find out what it's like having us on your team![.pink__text]
Felicia Bugge
Felicia is our resident Content Specialist. She is the mastermind behind most of our blogs, emails and Tiktoks! When she isn’t planning the next big email campaign or chasing participants for Tiktoks, she can be found travelling to new exotic places, reading the latest booktok book, or converting friends to using iPads for notes and calendars!
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