TARKA London

Company Details

Our mission:

‘To educate children physically and emotionally to be happy and healthy’

What is TARKA?

TARKA provides energising, stimulating and immersive Developmental Exercise classes for children aged between 18 months to 7 years. Our revolutionary ‘TARKA bible’, with over 600 unique and innovative games, was created by our lead instructor and an experienced former teacher, to ensure that we are educating children whilst getting them active and moving. Every service TARKA delivers is filled with huge energy and a real passion and drive to ensure that every child is desperate to come back- and it is our job to ensure that this is the case! TARKA is an incredibly rewarding and gratifying company where work doesn’t feel like work. Your job is to make children happy whilst getting them moving. It’s a win win for everyone!

Building Future Leaders and our History

TARKA was founded in 2016 by Rufus Gordon-Dean, an ex-Army Captain who served in Afghanistan. From the get-go he strongly believed that exercise was the key to happiness. It brings positivity and perspective to one’s outlook on life. So why couldn’t he do the same for children? Rufus was also influenced by the Scandinavian approach to education, the pioneers in Early Years education. TARKA puts movement at its core, making children subliminally love exercise because they don’t view it as just exercise, but as a hugely fun and interactive game surrounded by all their friends and gives them a chance to make new friends. Our games are designed to work on their balance, fine and gross motor skills, teamwork, understanding of others, confidence, leadership skills and general core strength. A lot of these elements are key values which Rufus adopted from the Army and he wanted to instil these into TARKA.

Our core values

1. Bring the fun

• Your mood sets the tone for everything we do
• Treat each single class as if it is the child's first class at TARKA
• Create an environment where children feel free to express their own personailities and individual charactersitics

2. Be engaging

• This goes for both parents and children
• Before and after the classes, on the phone and in public
• Make them feel welcomed and valued
• Spend more time with the quiet children to make them feel special
• Be proactive, kind and courteous to everyone

3. Take Ownership

• Be responsible for child safety
• Have pride in your appearance, kit and performance
• Take action when you need to, don't rely on others
• Be enthusiastic and commited to achieving the shared goal of ensuring happy and healthy children

4. Consistent Pursuit of Excellence

• Always look for and suggest improvements
• Let us know how we can support you to improve
• Push others to raise their standards
• Striving to consistently demonstrate a high standard to parents, children and other instructors

5. Passionate about the healthy, active and well rounded education

• Children should be doing 1 hr of exercise per day
• Equipping children with social and emotional intelligence
• Helping children to be kind, caring and understanding to others
• Creating an environment where children feel confident and passionate about exercise
• Help teach children the importance of exercise and how it makes them feel

TARKA’S Services

Term-time classes

We run term-time classes and Holiday classes in three locations. These are in Notting Hill, Fulham, and Knightsbridge. Our term-time classes are split into three different age groups:

Recruits: 18m-3 years

Troopers: 3-4.5 years

Captains: 4.5-6 years