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It's a Saturday morning and the school - usually a place of weekday routine and quiet corridors - is buzzing. The car park fills with men arriving alongside children, some walking hand in hand, some jogging to keep up with their kid who's already sprinting ahead. A few dads arrive with a child who doesn't have a father figure at home - brought along so they don't miss out. Inside, the school hall has been transformed. There are Subbuteo tables set up end to end, a mountain of

UK Pioneers issue. Dads Kids Club is a dad-led Community Interest Company that invites men to get more involved in their kids' education - improving children's educational engagement, men's mental health and life opportunities for both. We work with dads and male carers of all backgrounds, identities and beliefs to co-design and co-run screen-free, hands-on activity clubs for their kids, and for children in their community who don't have a father figure at home. Dads Kids Clu

We are super grateful of The Lego Foundation supporting the opening of new Dads Kids Clubs with the donation of a Play Box. Unboxing around 10kg of Lego is chaos and the creative tsunami that follows is a rush. Creativity connects young and old, strangers and friends, and of course dads and kids. To be creative is to try new things, to not know the answers, to fail and figure out another way. Reveling in the unpredictable can be uncomfortable at the beginning, but as you lean

When we welcome dads, male carers and kids into any session we'll always take time to introduce the activities on that day as every session's activities are different, along with who's leading them, so everyone is aware of what's on offer and can choose what they would like to do first. Safeguarding, responsibilities and image recording are also mandatory, but we'll get into that stuff in another post… We all have brilliant skills that are unique to us. Some get paid to share

It was the hottest day of the year so far, and the first day of half term, and some messaged to say they were not going to make it as they had set off early to Dover expecting delays. 145 dads, grandads, male carers and their kids did turn up and enjoyed our first public session at Vauxhall City Farm. Dads and kids from our London clubs turned up in good numbers, but the others were all strangers that bravely brought their kids along to play, learn and have fun. Connections w

In 2023, the University of Leeds, the Fatherhood Institute and the University of Manchester published one of the most rigorous studies ever conducted into how fathers affect their children's education. The findings are unambiguous. Fathers matter. The Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children's Education (PIECE) study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, tracked 4,966 mum-and-dad households in England drawing on Millennium Cohort Study data tracking chi

A recent introduction meeting at our latest school in South London How Dads Kids Club introduction meetings are growing in attendance - and what that tells us about what dads actually want. Something is happening. It always starts the same way with the Head Teacher asking us ‘will anyone turn up tonight’ (usually a Tuesday at 7pm). We always say 1 is more than we had this morning, but we’re wishing for record numbers or dads, stepdads, granddads, stepdads, uncles and male car

Inspired by the Fatherhood Institute’s FRED (Fathers Reading Every Day) programme we recently committed to getting more dads and male cares reading to children, especially to boys. Harper Collins survey of 1,596 parents of children aged 0 - 13 is worth a deep dive. Before we venture into reading, we thought it wise to mention that Dads Kids Club encourages dads and male carers to get more involved in their kids' learning, and by kids we mean of all genders, but in this case w

Who finds it harder - the child striding towards independence or the parent learning to let go? As the summer term gets underway, conversations at Dads Kids Club have been turning to something that feels a long way off until it suddenly isn't: the move from primary to secondary school. If your child is in Year 6 right now, you'll know that feeling. One minute they're learning to write their name, the next they're asking you to drop them off round the corner so their mates don

"Last Christmas was the first at our house without building Lego on Christmas day. I miss Lego. My kids have started selling it and sometimes it's worth more than what we paid for it." Said Phil Gibbins, Head Teacher without hiding his loss, whilst happily playing Lego at Meltham Dads Kids Club. I reflected on his loss, knowing that the day will come when my kids will someday lose the love of shared Lego play and you can't help but feel sad. I read an Instagram post recently

"I always remember my dad building me stilts when I was a kid" said Richard when he proudly presented Meltham Dads Kids Club with a junior and grown-up set of stilts he'd just made. Reluctant at first, possibly because they'd never strode on stilts, dads, male carers and kids all got a little taller and took their first elevated steps. My turn came around, up I stepped and it all came back to me - the thrill of the precarious platform that felt far higher than what it was, an

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