18 Months ago, we made the big decision to develop our Elite Camps Service and apply for Voluntary Ofsted registration. With this, we were aware there was a lot of hard work and dedication to come, although we were willing to rise to the challenge as it would make our Camps drastically improve in standards and allow all of our parents use childcare vouchers.
Fast forward to July 2017, our registration for 4 of our Venues were successful – Elite Camps Abingdon, Botley, Didcot & Oxford. We were ecstatic with the news, however, with the registration coming 1 day before camps started, we faced another issue making people aware the camps. Over the past 14 months, our camps have now gone strength to strength with people being aware of our ofsted status, which co-insided with our brand new booking system (Those of you who used the old system will be aware of the difference! And it saves me from me being up until 4am sorting registers!)
Back to this summers camps, we had already planned to visit all of our venues and conduct an internal inspection, when we had the call from Ofsted about their visit the next day. If you’ve ever been involved in an Ofsted visit within a school, all hell breaks lose, gathering information and making things perfect for their appearance. However, with thanks to all of our fantastic staff, getting ourselves prepared was an extremely calm experience! With everything already in order, we just touched on the main points from our meeting earlier that week with our staff again for what might happen as we have never experience an inspection before!
The day of the inspection went very smoothly, both camp managers at Elite Camps Abingdon & Elite Camps Botley were fantastic and EVERY child attending the camps on the inspection day was AMAZING! Following the visit, the Ofsted inspector provided the fantastic news that both facilities have passed as compliant – which means we are reaching the requirements Ofsted have set us. Due to being voluntary, we do not get given a grade, but to achieve the compliant result means we are doing everything correctly. Not only is this very satisfying, it also gives me great pride that we are running our camps correctly!
I would like to personally thank all of our staff once again for their hard work and dedication, in particular our camp managers on the day, Leigh Bedewed & Josh Gannon, who were a great credit to the company. I would also like to again thank ALL of the children across our camps. Not only did they make the inspections run smoothly, but also made the entire Summer enjoyable for our camp staff!
I would also like to thank all of our parents for their continued support! As a local business we couldn’t be here without you!
And Remember…. #BeElite!
Gareth Tucker
Managing Director
