April 2025-August 2025
Attendance:- 111 Adults, 12 Teenagers, Children 364
🌟 Social Impact
• Community Connection: Families and children recognised the circus team from schools, community hubs, and past events. Many asked “Do you remember me?” or requested future visits to their schools, showing strong continuity and trust.
• Inclusion & Accessibility: The free sessions broke down barriers for asylum-seeking families, low-income households, and those with additional needs. Parents expressed gratitude that children could join without cost and that activities were adaptable (e.g., tricks that could be done sitting down).
• Cultural Diversity: A wide range of languages (Welsh, Urdu, Arabic, Spanish, Balochi, Hindi, Punjabi) were heard. Children switched languages with trainers and helped with translation, creating intercultural exchange and strengthening community bonds.
• Cross-Generational Engagement: Parents, carers, and even grandparents joined in, learning hula hooping, juggling, and encouraging children. Adults described sessions as “life saver” and “my kids wait for you every Sunday in the park”, and said their children would be calmer and happier afterwards.
💡 Positive Change
• Skill Development & Confidence: Children proudly demonstrated tricks they had learned previously, asked to be challenged with harder skills, and persevered until they mastered them.
• Health & Wellbeing: Kids described activities as fun, good exercise and burning energy. Parents noted that outdoor play made children “less manic” and improved mood. Sessions promoted active play and teamwork (e.g.“floor is lava,” tidying up together).
• Belonging & Joy: Children expressed excitement (“The circus is here!”), asked repeatedly when trainers would return, and said it felt special that circus came to their local park. The sessions turned ordinary public spaces into lively, shared community hubs.
• Pathways & Aspirations: Families enquired about joining after-school clubs, holiday programmes, and adult circus sessions. Children linked their learning in the park to bigger dreams (wanting to do “hard tricks,” attend circus school, or even work for the circus).
• Family Support: Parents of neurodiverse children and those with multiple kids valued the stimulation, structure, and safe environment. Some described it as essential respite, saying their children were tired, calm, and happy afterwards.
✨ Overall: Circus in the Park sessions created joyful, inclusive, and memorable experiences, helping children build confidence, resilience, and friendships while strengthening community ties. The programme provided accessible arts engagement, reduced social isolation, and inspired both children and adults to see themselves as capable of learning, playing, and belonging.
Created using NFS monitoring form feedback 2005 and Chap GPT.
Quotes
"Is this for money?" 3 kids all excitedly screamed and ran to us when we said it was free!
"I like playing circus with you"
"I like packing away and helping you put things in your car, can we help please?"
“it's always been my dream to hula hoop" -20 year old mum who Laine taught to hula hoop
"Can you come back to my school soon?" (Adamsdown Primary)
"It's so much better doing activities outdoors. Great for the community and you get to interact with other people that you don't know."
"It's really good for the children and it's free. It's with equipment that we don't have at home."
"This is perfect, we've seen you before but never been able to stay for very long. Whereas today, we meant to come to the park for an hour, but then you arrived and it's been 2 and a half hours! They've learnt some tricks and had loads of fun and burnt loads of energy, so when we take them home now they'll be calm."