Keeping safe on TAZ holiday activities

The Adventure Zone (TAZ) holiday activities offer a great chance for young people to learn new skills and enjoy their school holidays. Here's important information on how we will care for your children and how you can help get them ready.

Safety is our top priority. All our activities and programmes undergo thorough risk assessments. This ensures our outdoor learning centres are as safe as possible.

Please check the key information below:

Arrival and departure

A parent or carer must arrive with the child or children and leave with them for TAZ courses. These run from 9.30am to 4.15pm.

Drop-off is at 9.30am. Collection is at 4.15pm. Please arrive on time to collect your child.

If you're running late, contact Surrey Outdoor Learning and Development (SOLD). We will arrange for staff to stay with your child. We need two staff members on site with with any children.

We therefore have a late collection fee to cover their additional hours.

For more information please look at our terms and conditions.

If you are happy for your child to make their own way home or meet you at a pre-arranged pick-up point, please let the centre know at the morning check in on the first day or email the week before the course starts.

Medication and illness

For children in SOLD's care (loco Parentis), we agree to administer medication as part of maintaining a child's health and wellbeing or when they are recovering from illness. Medicines will not be administered unless they have been prescribed for a child by a doctor, dentist, nurse or pharmacist (medicines containing aspirin should only be given if prescribed by a doctor).

When children are unwell or have an infection or virus that could spread, they should stay home for care.

Even if they feel better, children must not attend SOLD courses until at least 48 hours after starting antibiotics. This allows time for the medicine to work and ensures no side effects occur.

For sickness or diarrhoea, children should also stay away from SOLD courses for 48 hours after the last incident.

Where possible, parents should administer all medications outside of SOLD course hours. At sign in each day parents must provide information regarding their child's medical needs at time of booking and/or upon drop off time.

Parents must give medicines directly to SOLD Staff. Medicines provided must be accepted in the original container as dispensed by the pharmacist and with the prescriber's instructions for administration.

The appropriate dosage spoon should be included. Medicine must only be administered to a child where written permission for that particular medicine has been obtained from the child's parent and/or guardian using the SOLD Medication Consent Form. Children may be able to manage their own medication, e.g. asthma inhalers, under adult supervision but again, only with parental agreement.

Storage and administration of medications

Medicine must be clearly labelled by parents with their child's name who is taking the medicine. Medicine will be stored safely in the Duty Workers Office in a designated area or in the fridge (in the staff room) at the centre. SOLD use a register of any medicine administered to any child who is cared for on the premises, including the date and circumstances and who administered it, including medicine which the child is permitted to self-administer, together with a record of a parent/guardian's consent. If children refuse to take their medication, staff will not attempt to force them to do so. The manager and parent will be notified to decide next step.

Use of mobile devices whilst at a SOLD centre

We do not encourage the use of mobile phones at SOLD sites. If your child must bring a mobile phone onto a SOLD site it will be handed in at sign in, stored securely and returned at sign out. If a child needs to use their mobile phone whilst on site this must be done with permission and under supervision of the duty worker. If a child is seen to be using a mobile phone without permission, the phone will be handed to the duty worker, stored securely and returned at sign out.

SOLD staff in Loco Parentis (unaccompanied individual)

Parents of children visiting SOLD centres and participating in programmes without a group leader or teacher such as a TAZ holiday activity programme, can be assured that SOLD staff will be responsible for all individuals throughout every aspect of their supervision, whilst in SOLD's care.

All relevant information for the individuals, are collected from the booking process and kept for immediate reference to inform us or specific individual needs. When booking in at the beginning of the day, SOLD staff will reconfirm these details with the parent or carer dropping off.

The information ranges from medical and dietary requirements, specific learning needs and contact details.

SOLD responsibilities include fostering and encouraging positive behaviour with all participants.

Non collection of child or children

All parents and carers are informed of the expected time to collect their children. However on occasions we understand parents/Carers may be delayed. If this is the case we expect parents/carers to contact the centre as soon as possible and inform the centre of expected time of arrival.

Parents who do not collect their children will incur a late collection fee of £15 per 15 minutes, from 15 to 30 minutes late and thereafter £1 for every consecutive minute.

If the parent or carer has not made contact and the child has not been collected. Two members of staff will wait behind with the child. A member of staff will contact the emergency contacts if needed. The child will not be allowed to leave with anyone other than those named on the registration information and without prior permission from the parent (TAZ collection form).

If no response is received after 1 hour, the staff will contact the senior management team who will advise on next steps.

Additional information

If your child is not attending for any reason please contact the bookings office to let us know. This can be by email TAZcourses.enquiries@surreycc.gov.uk or by telephone on 01372 378901.

Please check here all UK call charges

Office hours are 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. There is an answer phone out of office hours.

More information about Weils disease.

Useful documents and links relating to SOLD.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions, and we look forward to meeting your child or children soon.