What types of care does Kirkburn Court Care Home offer?

Kirkburn Court Care Home offers Nursing care, Dementia care.

Activities at Kirkburn Court Care Home

Here at Kirkburn Court, we aim to facilitate a personalised programme of meaningful activities, which are designed to promote independence, social stimulation and cognitive function. We strive to create a comfortable and safe environment where fun, creativity and individuality are encouraged. We feel it is important for us and residents to place value on yesterday, today and tomorrow – which is why we invest heavily in getting to know residents and learning their life history.

Our inclusive, yet respectful ethos is reflected in the wide range of activities we offer – ranging from larger structured group activities to one-to-one sessions. Our monthly activity programmes are extremely varied, but some of the activities you may expect to find include concerts, crafts, games, exercise sessions, reminiscing and outings. We also have a strong relationship with the local community and often invite external guests into the home, including performers, schools, and choirs.

Watch our video on life enrichment in our homes.

Claire Burden

Activities Coordinator

I began my career with Barchester in December 2017. Having worked within the teaching profession for the preceding 8 years, I feel that I bring a range of transferable skills to the activities team.

I strongly believe that the provision of activities is about so much more than just structured, planned events – capturing and celebrating the little moments in daily life, such as enjoying a chat and a cup of tea together, are equally as important.

Activities, no matter how big or small, should be at the heart of every home and that individuality should be celebrated. In addition, I feel that activities should take a person-centred approach, which is why I enjoy spending time with the residents and learning about their preferences and their history.

My own interests include football, politics, crafting and drinking tea, and I enjoy nothing better than engaging with residents on these topics! I aim to bring energy, a friendly smile and a willing ear to the home each day.

Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure

Activities and Events Partnerships

As part of our bespoke life-enrichment programmes, we host a number of live virtual events in the home on a regular basis through a number of partnerships with places of interest and world class performance companies

Life at Kirkburn Court Care Home

Visit our Facebook page to keep updated with all the activities in our home

International Country Music Day

We have recently had our very own hoedown here at Kirkburn!

In honour of International Country Music Day, we have donned our cowboy hats and taken part in a few different themed games.

Firstly we tried our hand at cowboy boot beanbag toss and we concluded that we have a pretty good aim - although there was definitely some cheating going on! This was followed by Cactus Ring Toss and a game of Rodeo Bingo.

Of course, our soundtrack for the day was a range of classic country music.

We had a great fun filled time, with lots of laughs.

Bus Trip

Some of our lovely ladies enjoyed a trip out to Strichen Lake recently.

We enjoyed a fly cup in the cafe and had some lovely cakes. We then had a wee walk along to see the swans and ducks in the lake - they all came straight over to see us! We took the scenic route back to take in some of the local sights.

We had a lovely afternoon out filled with lots of chat and laughter.

Jo Jingles

We have been delighted to kick off our Jo Jingles Intergenerational Classes again - we have missed them over the summer! Our residents loved meeting the new boys and girls and it was lovely that some of their great grandchildren were also in attendance too!

We had great fun joining in with singing, dancing and playing a few instruments. Just seeing the children brought so much joy to our residents.

Joyful Ponies

We were delighted to welcome Joyful Ponies & Pygmy's - Animal Assisted Therapy to Kirkburn. They brought along Millie and Ruby who were Shetland ponies and also Dusty the American pony. We had a great time learning all about them and got the chance to give them lots of cuddles!

It was great to see our residents, their families and our staff out enjoying the visit. There were definitely a few offers to take the ponies home! They were beautiful!

Although our star of the day was our lovely resident Cathy - she was in her absolute element. She helped to lead the ponies around the building and exclaimed that this had "made her day!" She was delighted to tell the ladies all about her days living on a farm and that she loved animals.

A huge thanks again to the ladies from Joyful ponies for coming to visit us.

A Special Event

We were recently delighted to warmly welcome relatives and friends of residents past and present to Kirkburn for a very special afternoon.

We began with a lovely service of remembrance in the Kirkburn Gardens, which was held beside our Covid Memorial plaque. Grateful thanks go to Robert Mackie for conducting this - his kind and thoughtful words were so appreciated by all those who were in attendance.

Our resident, Neil, then did the honours by cutting the ribbon at the front door so that we could welcome everyone inside to see the new and improved Kirkburn, following our extensive refurbishment programme.

All our families then enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea aswell as a tour of all the work that has been carried out. All the feedback was very positive.

It was lovely for staff to have the opportunity to connect with previous relatives again. It was an emotional afternoon, but with lots of happy memories, laughs and stories shared.

We would also like to say a huge thank you to Josh for coming along to play his bagpipes at the event. He even went around the whole building so that all the residents in their rooms could see him too.

Thanks also to the lovely ladies at the Events Company (you know who you are!) for our amazing balloon displays. You really helped Kirkburn to look it's best!

Move it or Loose it!

We are delighted to announce that we now have Lee from 'Move It or Loose It!' visiting Kirkburn every second Tuesday to undertake exercise and movement sessions with our residents. The sessions have been a huge success so far and the residents have been thoroughly enjoying them.

Keeping the body active and moving is so important and it is great that we now have Lee's guidance in this area. He has been taking us through fully seated programmes which can get us all moving - no matter what our ability.

We will really look forward to these sessions every fortnight.