20 Best Summer Holiday Kids Clubs & Activities In St Albans

This is your guide to keeping your kids entertained during the Summer holidays in St Albans

School’s Out… Now What? 

It’s the big one, the school Summer holidays, and as a parent you’re excited that your kids have some down time and probably at an absolute loss as to how to help them fill their time and carry on with the day job.

The Hobby Republik guide to the holiday is here to give you loads of ideas (well at least 20!), to keep your kids entertained, inspired and away from screentime. We’ve organised it by category including our absolute favourite… the FREE STUFF.  So let’s get in to it…

Arts & Crafts

Arty Pants – new to our site they are a great company with a great name! Run by Mandy and Emma, you can sign up for half days and full days and can expect all manner of mindful crafting activities (fancy making a dreamcatcher?) fun and games. Get in touch for the latest available dates.

art–K – We recently paid a visit to one of their adult classes (you can see the video here), Art-K have their own place on Catherine Street, which is absolutely stacked with art materials. The classes are run by Aastha and her team with enormous amounts of enthusiasm, and are a combination of half day and full day courses. They explore projects working with paper sculpture, clay, design, mixed media, watercolour and acrylics. Every student works on their own individual project - at the end of the session they'll go home with a finished piece of artwork!

Suitable for age 6 – 16 a half day costs £27.50 and a whole day £65

The Great Outdoors

Edge FA – Phil and … the team behind EDGE FA are the real deal. They have experience of working in football at a professional level and are now bringing what they’ve learned to the youth of St Albans. Their ethos is to get out and have fun, but those that want to take it more seriously… the field is yours!

Classes for 3yrs – 15 yrs will be running throughout August on Tuesdays and Fridays

Verulam Angling Club – Founded in 1934 and now with over 2000 members, the fishing club runs 30 minute coaching sessions for kids, after which your budding angler can fish for the rest of the day in a supervised area.  It’s free and includes free tackle and bait

The Pioneer Club Skate School – The iconic Pioneer Club has both an indoor and an outdoor skateboard park, and it’s skate instructors include professional, sponsored skaters. In other words it’s proper! There are sessions suitable for ages 3 and up, and the quality of the ramps means that it remains a favourite destination for adult skaters too

Swimming Courses

Well it wouldn’t be summer without a trip to the swimming pool, but, for those that either can’t swim, or need to improve these swimming schools are coming to your rescue...

Dolphin Swimming School – Tuggy and the team return with their ever popular crash courses which are 30 minute swim sessions every day for a week. They are running August 4^th-8^th and August 11^th-15^th at Samuel Ryder School

Watersplash Swim School – Lauren and her team will be running their summer swim courses at Marlborough Science Academy, sign up for a week’s worth of lessons (5 x 30 minute lessons) between August 4^{th –} 8^th and August 11^th – 15^th.

Dance and Drama

SASA – operating out of a number of venues especially The pioneer Club, this drama school run by Phoebe Shergold-Willis goes from strength to strength. Their summer camps promise days full of dance and drama culminating in a fabulous production, and this year they will also be taking their Summer School to Harpenden between 11^th and 15^th August  

Tappy Toes – Olivia will be offering some special Summer sessions for your little ones, a Jungle Party and a Summer Party, themed Tappy Toes fun followed by a 45 minute Stay and Play with refreshments

Ages: walking to 5 years,

8^th August and 15^th August, £10.50 per child

Jigsaw – If you've discovered Natalie's super-fun, dance, drama and singing classes at Marlborough Science Academy on a Saturday morning, you may also be interested to know that Jigsaw also run summer clubs for ages 3-16, available everyday in various locations

CJ Dance School – Based in Chiswell Green the speciality here is acro dance (acrobatics) and although they only have a couple of dates left in the Summer if you have a kid that wants to perfect their cartwheels or tumble down an airtrack, this one is for you

Free!

St Albans Library – Yes the library has a whole programme of activities from the end of July and throughout August. You can expect summer crafts, some messy art, and even a session where you can meet live animals (thankfully, the Library has changed a bit since I was little!). Activities range in price from free to around £10 and all take place in the main library in town. Fill out the form at the bottom of the post for more details

The Cycle Hub – This extraordinary centre run by the equally extraordinary Mat, is one of St Albans best kept secrets.  It’s the home to 4 different cycle tracks (a tarmac pump track and 3 dirt tracks) and all of them are free to use. Practice on the pump track and then take your skills to the jumps and berms of the dirt track. You can hire appropriate bikes and safety equipment and if you want some proper training come down on a Tuesday evening and join the BMX class and yes, that’s free too!

Family

Dark Fire Café – There’s nothing quite like a board game to bring the family together and to get the kids off their phones, and Dark Fire Café is St Albans very own specialist boardgame café.  As well as running Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer sessions for kids, you can also borrow one of their classic boardgames and play as a family, and obviously there are drinks and snacks at your elbow.  And if you are coming as a family, adults go free. Power to your dice!

Available all the way through August

Jet Black Squares Smartphone Safari – Jet is the innovative founder behind the unique Jet Black Squares, which offers smartphone photography safaris in and around St Albans. Jet will show you how to find the most amazing picture opportunities right on your doorstep, and then she’ll show you how to make the most of your phone’s camera and available editing software

Next Safaris in Verulamium Park – Friday 15^th August and Saturday 23^rd August, price £45

Multi-Activity Clubs

Perhaps the holy grail of holiday clubs, these companies offer half days and whole days of fun that involve arts, crafts, games as well as activities such as swimming (but check in advance what’s on offer on any particular day).

Fizzbug – This award-winning kids club offers multi-activity clubs, cookery clubs, football clubs and arts and crafts clubs too – the hardest part is going to be choosing one of them! Simply pack off your little ones with lunch and a waterbottle and the rest will be taken care of.

Ages 4-11Half days start from around £22

Club Kidz – Based in Park Street School, Annette’s team will be running a whole host of fun stuff, from cookery and arts & crafts to outside team games and indoor board games – no one is getting bored and new friends will be made!

Club Kidz is on every day through the Summer, from 8am – 6pm, £42 per day.

Mother and Baby

If you’re younger ones are… even younger, then these activities should be on your radar this summer

Moonbeams Baby massage – whether you’d like to do a short course with your baby, or you’d just like a lovely drop in session Moonbeam has you covered

Mamma Social – This franchise has finally and thankfully made its way to St Albans. A super informal walk and chat with fellow mammas, this free activity is designed to offer support and friendship

Nurture Harmonics – From the enterprising team that bought you Arty Pants, Nurture Harmonics combines two St Albans favourites – baby massage and sound baths (sound meditation). Learn baby massage techniques with your baby and enjoy ultimate relaxation as you listen to vibrations from unique instruments like the Tibetan Sound Bowl. All you need to do is… breathe

Need more information?

You can either look on our website, but during this period we know that places can get filled quickly, new dates suddenly announced, or occasionally activities cancelled, you might want to just get in touch with your questions about availability, or activity details and we’ll be happy to get the most up to date answers to you ASAP!  Just hit the button below and fill out the form

What did we miss?

This was our top 20, but we don’t know about everything, so do let us know in the comments below who else we should be mentioning either now or in future holidays?