FREE March-April 2017 familiesonline.co.uk EASTER SPECIAL Bumper What’s On Mother’s Day ideas WHAT’S ON GUIDE For 0-12 year olds Buy stick on labels for clothing! in March and April Quick & Easy 01786 473 508 Covering: Reigate, Redhill, Dorking, Leatherhead, Caterham, Godstone, Warlingham, Tadworth, Horley, Oxted and Lingfield familiessurreyeast FamiliesSurreyE Singing, dancing and acting classes for 4 - 18 year olds, where BE students learn to embrace life with creativity and courage COULSDON GOOD 0345 078 0805 stagecoach.co.uk/coulsdon AT DORKING & REIGATE 0800 007 5482 BEING stagecoach.co.uk/dorking YOURSELF stagecoach.co.uk/reigate LEATHERHEAD 020 8394 2244 stagecoach.co.uk/leatherhead OXTED 0808 208 5134 stagecoach.co.uk/oxted REDHILL ™ 020 8686 0141 ® Creative Courage For Life stagecoach.co.uk/redhill ISSUE 57 MARCH - APRIL 2017 IN THIS ISSUE Page 2 News Page 14 Holiday Clubs Page 5 Babies & Toddlers Page 15 Club News Happy Springtime! Here at Families we’re loving the warmer Page 6 Mother’s Day Page 16 Education weather and longer evenings – and looking forward to the Page 8 Easter Page 18 What’s On Easter hols. It’s been a bit of a mission to squeeze all the fab Page 12 Nature Notes events into the What’s On pages this issue – it’s packed! We’ve got 4 pages of Easter egg hunts and craft ideas, Families Surrey East is part of the national network of Families another 2 pages of Easter days out (whatever the weather) magazines. See www.familiesonline.co.uk/local/surrey-east for and some ideas for Mother’s Day. more features and competitions. Alongside the usual Nature Notes (check out the new Nower NEXT ISSUE – May-June 2017, out 3rd May. Send your news and Wood centre in Leatherhead) and Education pages, it’s a very upcoming events by 7th April for FREE INCLUSION. busy issue. Remember that you can also check What’s On at PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS and reach families throughout East your local Families site and keep an eye on the In the Know Surrey with DISPLAY ADS or ask about our WEB ADS from £42. section for seasonal news and articles. AD BOOKING AND COPY DEADLINE FOR MAY-JUNE 2017 is 7th APRIL. Please send ad artwork by 14TH APRIL. Hannah Grogan, Editor Contact me at [email protected] For advertising & editorial enquiries call the Editor on 07769 222347 or email: editor@ familiessurreyeast.co.uk 22,500 copies of FAMILIES SURREY EAST are distributed free of charge to schools, nurseries, playgroups, clubs & classes, NCT groups, baby clinics, good children’s shops, libraries, theatres & sports centres. Distributed to venues in Leatherhead and Dorking, Reigate and Redhill, Godstone, Oxted and Lingfield, Warlingham and Caterham and down to Horley and the Surrey/Sussex border in the south. To obtain copies for your venue call 07769 222347 or email [email protected]. Families Surrey East, 37 Springcopse Road, Reigate, Surrey RH2 7HH Tel: 07769 222347 Web: familiesonline.co.uk/local/sur- rey-east. Annual subscription £15. Email: [email protected] Design: Andrews Design & Marketing, The Studio, 29A Bell St, Reigate, Surrey RH2 7AD Tel: 01737 224340 Email: [email protected]. Print: Printmates, 84 Holmethorpe Ave, Redhill, Surrey RH1 2NL. Tel: 01737 773755. Families Surrey East is part of Families Magazines Ltd, a franchise company. All franchised magazines in the group are independently owned and operated under licence. Families® is a registered trademark of Families Magazines Ltd, Remenham House, Regatta Place, Marlow Road, Bourne End, Bucks SL8 5TD. AWARD-WINNING The contents of Families Surrey East are fully protected by copyright and none of the editorial or pho- tographic matter may be reproduced in any form without prior consent of the publisher. We take every care when preparing this magazine but the publishers and distributors cannot be held responsible for the claims of advertisers, nor for the accuracy of the contents nor for any consequence. Meet the Scummy Mummies The Scummy Mummies are Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorn – and they know your secrets. They know you drink wine out of a mug at teatime. They know you’re carrying a dirty nappy in your handbag right now – because they do it too! The comedy duo with four kids between them and a successful podcast to make you all feel Call 030 3003 4006 to better about your parenting fails, book your free trial. have just written a book! Packed explorelearning.co.uk with cringey, hilarious and honest confessions from real life motherhood, the book also HAVE YOU BEEN includes quizzes, handy hacks and stupid jokes to help you battle your way FEARLESS through the day. TODAY? You can also see the ladies live on March 22nd at Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush, so why not grab your girls and head up to the big smoke for a mum’s night out. Look out London! Details /explorelearning at scummymummies.com. @exploretutors BOOK GIVE AWAY The book is out March 9th from Quadrille at a very pocket-friendly £7.99 and we’ve got a copy to EducationInvestor give away to the reader who sends me their best Scummy Awards 2016 Mummy story to [email protected] by March 31st. Winner will be chosen by a panel of like-minded mums! 2 Families Surrey East March-April 2017 News Kingswood Shetlands for Schools & SEN In December, Claire Quinn of Kingswood Shetlands very kindly invited the Families tribe to visit her adorable miniature ponies and find out more about what they do. My youngest is horse-mad, so we jumped at the chance! Kingswood Shetlands are a local, experienced and fully insured mobile service which visits schools, centres, residential homes, Comic Relief 2017 functions and parties, bringing 2-3 ponies with them for education, It’s Red Nose time again! Last time around, in 2015, the generous therapy and fun! people of the South East raised and donated more than £1.3m The school trips help to bring science topics to life and are suitable to help important causes across the UK and abroad, including 47 for children from Nursery through to key stage 1 and 2. Children projects in this region. get the opportunity to handle and learn about the ponies and The 2017 event is held on Fri 24th March with the theme Make Your related science topics. Laugh Matter. Since launching in 1988, Comic Relief has sold more The SEN visits are available to all children with disabilities and offer than 70m red noses in the UK (enough to stretch from London to a rewarding ‘hands on’ experience. The ponies are small, gentle and Ankara, Turkey!). patient and the visits focus on allowing the children to interact with To find out more about what’s happening in the South East and how the ponies by touching, stroking and brushing. Claire will liaise with you can support the event at school or work visit rednoseday.com teaching staff in advance to provide support material and a visit plan to prepare the children. Leatherhead Skate Park You can also book Kingswood Shetlands for kid’s parties, with grooming, dressing and riding the ponies as part of the package – The public consultation on the Kingston Road skate park in see more info in our Parties issue in May. To find out more, contact Leatherhead has reached its second stage. Between 20th- 31st Claire at kingswoodshetlands.co.uk March locals can vote on the 3 shortlisted designs and pick their favourite. T ravelling with Autism The winning design will be announced in early April,Design with work 5 Kingston Road Recreationto start Ground this Summer. Skate To check Park them out visit molevalley.gov. With World Autism Awareness Week coming up from 27th uk/kingstonroadskatepark and drop into the Help Shop in March 27th- 2nd April, you might be interested to know that Leatherhead or Dorking Council Offices to vote. Gatwick recently became the UK’s first Autism Friendly airport, in recognition of the airport’s commitment to becoming an accessible and friendly environment for autistic passengers. The award recognises the airport’s efforts to meet a range of Autism Friendly criteria which benefit autistic passengers, their families and caregivers. For these passengers, a special lanyard can be worn on their journey through the airport, which will identify them to specially trained staff as someone who may need additional support or understanding. If you’re flying from Gatwick and have any other special requirements, they also provide disabled parking, help points and mobility assistance across the airport. Sign up to Gatwick Airport’s regular digital newsletter to stay updated on airport news at gatwickairport.com/communitynewsletter Families Surrey East March-April 2017 3 News Teaching Kids Mindfulness Families HQ likes to keep an eye on local Facebook groups to see what’s making people tick in the parenting community – so we were really interested to see a recent post relating to mindfulness for children. Living in the moment and the practice of mindfulness is a hot topic right now, but it’s hard to make the space to teach your kids (and yourself) how to do it. Surrey Youth Games The post went bananas with requests for info and organisations Following the success of Team Mole Valley in the 2016 Surrey Youth that can help teach mindfulness to children – and it turns out that Games, young people are invited to take part in FREE training there are quite a few! If you’re interested in finding out more about sessions ahead of this year’s SYG, taking place on 17- 18 June at the mindfulness, and would like some simple, do-able techniques for all Surrey Sports Park.