Playscheme Leader

Organisation :	Thames Explorer Trust
Salary :	£278/week
Location :	Richmond upon Thames
Hours :	Part Time
Position type :	Paid
Contract :	Temporary
Closing date :	Mon 10 June 13
Website :	www.thames-explorer.org.uk
Contact name :	Lorraine Conterio
Contact telephone :	442087420057
Contact email :	lorraine@thames-explorer.org.uk

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JOB DESCRIPTION FOR PLAYSCHEME LEADERS

Description of Project

The project offers a day out to holiday clubs and families with children from backgrounds of social deprivation, special needs or who are disabled. For many of the children, this kind of experience is the only summer outing that they get. The project is river-based and offers accompanied boat trips and nature safari’s at the Richmond riverside.

Working conditions

The project runs for 4 weeks from 30th July to 23rd August 2013. Project staff will be expected to attend a training day at the start of the project. Working hours are Monday to Friday, 10.30am to 3.00pm. If there are no bookings at all for a particular day, which occasionally happens, staff may be asked to come into the Trust’s Chiswick Centre to help with the administration. Pay is £278.47 per week.

Job description

Role of Playscheme Leader

There are two Playscheme Leaders, who will work together to provide an educational and memorable day out for each group and, where possible, foster an appreciation of the river environment. The project leader is our Trust Manager, who will devise resources and activities for the project, handle all training, bookings and administration for the scheme and also provide on site support.

Leading activities on walks and boat trips

The Playscheme Leaders accompany each group, acting as a guide to what can be seen and explored and organising environmental activities. Initiative and input from the Playscheme Leaders in devising new environmental activities are welcomed. Playscheme Leaders are responsible for ensuring that all health and safety and child protection procedures are carried out, all risk minimized and you will be provided with additional information regarding the health and safety of the area. The health and safety procedures are carried out by our Playscheme Leaders and supervised by the project manager. The Playscheme Leaders are responsible for giving all children and their careers a health and safety talk at the beginning of the day and to re-enforce this throughout the day as well as provide every accompanying adult with an information sheet on health and safety at the start of the visit. Playscheme Leaders will ensure that all groups have the correct adult to child ratio and that this is maintained at all times. Some children are in wheelchairs, a fact which needs to be taken into account when planning activities (The boat can cater for children in wheelchairs). Some groups have special needs and behavioural problems, which have to be assessed and taken into account when accompanying and advising the group.

Advice and information: Playscheme Leaders will provide advice to groups on planning their visit, how to get to the river, how to get the most out of their visit and practical information on location of toilets, good picnic spots etc.

Feedback: Each group must be provided with a feedback form after their visit and Playscheme Leaders should encourage groups to provide feedback on how the visit went.

Experience and Skills needed

• experience of leading and developing outdoor environmental activities
• ability to lead large groups of sometimes boisterous children safely around a river environment
• sensitive to the needs of children with physical, learning and emotional difficulties
• gets on well with 4 to 16 year olds (occasionally children are outside this age range)
• friendly but assertive personality
• well organised and sensible
• enthusiastic about the river environment
• fit with high energy levels
• first aid certificate an advantage but not essential

Please note: A CRB check will be run on all those working for the Project.

Mrs Lorraine Conterio
Trust Manager