Additional Need Settings
Snakes alive offers a fully interactive experience providing participants the ability to encounter and handle a variety of species. We have featured encounters in schools specific for children with special education needs and disabilities and will accommodate everyone where possible.
Our animals provide an amazing sensory experience in discovering snakes are smooth and not slimy, feeling stick insects tickling your hand, see scorpions turn blue, hearing cockroaches hiss, smelling the vinegary scent of the whip scorpion and even tasting a selection of special edible bugs.
Frequently Asked Questions
The children can be heavy handed, will they harm the animals? Our staff are experienced in providing encounters for a variety of audiences and will supervise all interaction with animals. If we feel there may be a risk to our animals we will allow observations of the more delicate species and reserve hands on encounters for the more robust animals.
Read more about our animals...
Are the animals harmful? We do not use any venomous animals and never leave the animals unattended. Any animal can be unpredictable in their behaviour so we always ask that children are kept calm and supervised throughout our presentations and any pets to be kept in another room.
Is it safe to touch the animals? Hygiene is also of the upmost importance to both our audience and animals so we strongly encourage all participants to wash their hands before and after encounters and no food to be consumed near or during the presentation. We provide alcohol based hand sanitizer at all of our displays and latex gloves if certain animals are being displayed. A copy of our general Risk Assessment is available upon request.
Will presentations be too informative for children with learning difficulties? We can adapt our presentations to suit the audiences and will provide just the basic information in presentation format and reserve further information for an individual or small group talks when we begin the encounters. This enables us to judge the understanding of participants and provide information in a less formal manner.
Do you provide any resources? We can provide colouring sheets and fact sheets upon request. We can adapt these in to large print if required. Please feel free to contact us if you would be interested in keeping a collection of mini-beasts at your setting, such as cockroaches, snails or mealworms, as we can advise and supply a suitable enclosure, a number of animals for an existing set-up or both.
Read more about our consultancy service...
Do we need to provide anything? All we ask is that we have access to a table to put the animals on and a power socket in order to heat the animals if necessary.
What happens if the children or staff have a phobia of snakes or spiders? We can provide preliminary information on the animals prior to the encounters and will provide nervous participants with the opportunity to approach the animals in their own time or distance themselves during presentations.
How much does it cost? Please contact us for an up-to-date quote and discuss individual requirements.
