Annual report for 2023 to 2024.
Healthy Holidays is the local name for the Department for Education’s Holiday Activity and Food Programme (HAF). The programme provides funding for organisations to run clubs over the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays for children eligible for benefits related Free School Meals (and a small number of children eligible for other reasons).
The Holidays Activity and Food Programme aims to provide physical and enriching activities together with a hot meal to eligible children and young people. The programme seeks to promote nutritional education and healthy lifestyle messages as well as offering opportunities to signpost families to additional sources of support.
Healthy Holidays Leeds
The Healthy Holidays programme in Leeds is coordinated by the Council’s Financial Inclusion Team and is delivered via three separate strands of provision, namely schools, third sector and Leeds City Council. The schools and Leeds City Council programmes are commissioned centrally with the third sector provision being administered by Leeds Community Foundation on behalf of and in close conjunction with the Financial Inclusion Team’s Healthy Holidays Coordinator. This joint approach ensures consistency in terms of quality and enables the sharing of best practice across the city’s programme.
Healthy Holidays funding 2023 to 2024
| Department for Education funding for Leeds 2023 | £3,527,070 |
| Administrative expenditure (this includes all of the costs Leeds City Council have incurred in carrying out the administrative functions of the HAF coordination) | £352,070 |
Unique children reached
| Easter | Primary-aged | Secondary-aged |
|---|
| Eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 3,190 | 789 |
| Eligible for FSM and SEND | 548 | 112 |
| Not eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 421 | 141 |
| Not eligible for FSM and SEND | 95 | 34 |
| Total number of attendees | 4,254 | 1,076 |
| Summer | Primary-aged | Secondary-aged |
|---|
| Eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 5,856 | 1,660 |
| Eligible for FSM and SEND | 1,345 | 617 |
| Not eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 1,170 | 645 |
| Not eligible for FSM and SEND | 397 | 178 |
| Total number of attendees | 8,768 | 3,100 |
| Christmas | Primary-aged | Secondary-aged |
|---|
| Eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 3,030 | 621 |
| Eligible for FSM and SEND | 581 | 115 |
| Not eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 276 | 78 |
| Not eligible for FSM and SEND | 80 | 39 |
| Total number of attendees | 3,967 | 853 |
| Yearly total | Primary-aged | Secondary-aged |
|---|
| Eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 12,076 | 3,070 |
| Eligible for FSM and SEND | 2,474 | 844 |
| Not eligible for FSM, non-SEND | 1,867 | 864 |
| Not eligible for FSM and SEND | 572 | 251 |
| Total number of attendees | 16,989 | 5,029 |
Total primary and secondary-aged attendees
| 22,018
|
“The main societal impact of our provision is providing opportunity for our disadvantaged students to feel part of a community. Our students with refugee status have now been able to make friends that have carried them into the new school year. This has meant that they are now happier coming to school, feel comfortable to seek support from the camp team and have much improved attendance and therefore better access to education. The same can be said for our SEND students, who again have improved attendance and better relationships with staff as a result of being able to communicate outside of a formal educational setting. Engaging our students in camps has meant that they are better prepared to engage with the wider school community.”
Steering group
- Leeds Community Foundation
- Fareshare Yorkshire
- Rethink Food
- Hamara
- Give A Gift
- Leeds City Council – Chief Officer Community Hubs, Welfare and Business Support
- Leeds City Council – Youth Service
- Leeds City Council – Public Health
- Leeds City Council – Active Leeds
- Leeds City Council – Breeze
- Leeds City Council – Children and Families
- Leeds City Council – Financial Inclusion
- Leeds City Council – Communities
- Leeds City Council – Catering Leeds
Delivery partners
Schools
- 2Gether Cluster
- Allerton Bywater Primary School
- Alwoodley Primary School
- Beechwood Primary School Beeston Primary School
- Bishop Young Academy
- Bruntcliffe Academy
- Carr Manor Community School
- Elements Primary School and Bramley Park Academy
- Grimes Dyke Primary School
- Headingley and Kirkstall Schools Partnership/Cluster
- Holy Family Catholic Primary School
- Hovingham Primary School
- InnerEast Cluster
- Kippax Greenfield Primary School
- Leeds City Academy
- Leeds City College
- Leeds East Academy
- Leeds West Academy
- Manor Wood Primary School and Children's Centre
- Morley Cluster
- Mount St Mary's Catholic High School
- Park Spring Primary
- Parklands Primary School
- Ralph Thoresby School
- Reach Primary Learning Centre
- Robin Hood Primary School
- Roundhay School
- Seacroft Manston Cluster
- Shire Oak Primary school
- Southroyd Primary School
- St Bartholomew's Primary School
- St Josephs Catholic Primary School
- Strawberry Fields Primary School
- Temple Learning Academy
- The Stephen Longfellow Academy
- Trinity Academy Leeds
- West SILC
- Wetherby High School
Third sector
- BARCA Leeds
- CATCH Leeds
- Champions Community Sport and Health CIC
- Complete Woman CIC
- Connecting Crossgates
- Dance Action Zone Leeds
- East Leeds Project
- Getaway Girls
- GFS Community Enterprise (The Old Fire Station)
- GIPSIL
- Give A Gift
- Groundwork Yorkshire (Ardsley and Lofthouse)
- Groundwork Yorkshire (Morley)
- Groundwork Yorkshire (Rothwell)
- Guiseley Community Foundation
- Hamara Healthy Living Centre
- Health for All (Middleton and Belle Isle)
- Health for All (Swarcliffe and Whinmoor)
- Health for All (Beeston and Cottingley)
- Holbeck Together
- Hunslet Club
- Hunslet Rugby Foundation
- Hyde Park Source
- Kirkstall Valley Development Trust
- Leeds GATE Gypsy and Traveller Exchange
- Leeds Mencap
- Leeds United Foundation (Armley)
- Leeds United Foundation (Beeston)
- Leeds United Foundation (Halton Moor)
- Left Bank Leeds
- Moortown West Community Association
- New Wortley Community Association
- Nigerian Yorkshire Communities Network UK CIC
- Reestablish
- Seacroft Community on Top
- St Giles Trust
- St Luke’s Cares
- Stitch-Up CIC
- Team Daniel
- Yorkshire Contemporary
- The Youth Association
- The Zone
Leeds City Council
- Armley Community Hub and Library
- Dewsbury Road Community Hub and Library
- Thackray Museum of Medicine
- Reginald Centre Community Hub and Library
- Breeze Little London
- Breeze South Leeds Youth Hub
- Breeze Bramley St Peter’s Primary School
- Breeze Castleton Primary School
Marketing and promotion
Healthy Holidays in Leeds during 2023 was promoted in multiple ways reflecting the diverse strands of provision in the city but included social media, Leeds City Council and provider websites, traditional flyers and banners as well as direct mailings from Healthy Holidays, through schools and third sector partners. We have anecdotal evidence that word of mouth played its part in the promotion of the scheme with eligible families.
Celebration of the programme took place through social media, traditional media, including local tv news, provider celebration events and presentations to our stakeholders.
During 2023, our Healthy Holidays providers told us they linked and forged partnerships with other organisations to support their programmes, including commercial retail partners and Leeds BID (Business Improvement District). We fund internal council services and external partners to support provision, this includes food from Catering Leeds, FareShare, Rethink, Give a Gift, Hamara, and wider experiences such as West Leeds Activity Centre, Herd Farm, Parks and Countryside, and Swimming.
“As a School, we have continually looked for ways to improve our Healthy Holiday provision to cater for different needs. We feel this year the partners we worked with for the first time, provided a variation of activities that all pupils could enjoy and participate in.”
Highlights and successes of the programme
The Healthy Holidays programme in Leeds during 2023 had significant success. The programme exceeded our targets in reaching numbers of eligible children and young people. The breadth of activities was extensive and many providers offered family trips, eg. visits to the coast and ‘Winter Wonderlands’, bringing added value to the programme. Much of the food on offer was of the highest quality, prepared and made on site, such as that cooked by the dedicated chef at Herd Farm. Nutritional education for both children and families was supported through our partnership with Zest Foodwise and the Healthy Eating Toolkits supported this element of the programme at each delivery period. Signposting families to additional sources of support was critically important during 2023 given the ongoing cost of living crisis and the Community Hub provision led the way in this respect linking families to other Council services; NHS and third sector partners who frequently operate out of the same Hub building. These are just examples of the great work which took place under Healthy Holidays Leeds in 2023.
Although often hard to quantify, Healthy Holidays provision had clear impact resulting in behaviour change and learning:
“Charlotte was extremely shy on the first day of Holiday Club and wouldn't speak to anymore. This continued throughout the week until the last day when we noticed she had made a friend. We contacted her Mum and asked if she would like to attend an extra week to help her gain some more confidence. By the end of week 2 she was like a different person. We had been given information from her primary school which said she never engages and doesn't make friends.”
“We have always looked to include children in as many of these groups as possible for a number of reasons. The key reason in a number of their cases is the social isolation that a long holiday can bring for some of these children along with a lack of physical activity and in a number of cases less access to nutritional food than during the school term. We also always feel that a number of these pupils hugely benefit from the lower staff to pupil ratio compared to normal school and that they enjoy the interaction with the positive role models we employ as coaches. We use every possible opportunity to interact with pupils in these groups both during the actual activities and also during meal and break times. Our staff will always try to build strong relationships with these pupils and hope that these strong relationships and the child's positive experiences on the course will have a link to when they return to school after the holidays, this has proved the case in previous years.”
Food offer
"We visited Lineham farm and had hot meals including a Xmas dinner which many had not had before, trying new foods and eating lots of fruit and vegetables."
“The children in the cohort sometimes have complicated home lives and it is important that a professional agency interacts with them, especially in the long 6 week holidays. The provision gives them a warm meal which they might not necessarily get at home.”
Food provision throughout 2023 was of a high standard in general with all provision meeting children and young people’s dietary needs and cultural requirements. Catering Leeds provided food for some of the schools, all Community Hubs and the Breeze Youth Service provision.
Other providers commissioned local catering services but several also chose to focus heavily upon this element of their programme and involve children and young people in the preparation and cooking of meals from scratch.
Several clubs, including those specialising in SEND provision, incorporated restaurant experiences within their programmes offering participants the opportunity to ‘eat out’ which may well be beyond the reach of many families, especially given the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Our central funding of cultural and surplus food hubs brought significant added value to the Programme across Leeds enabling providers to add snacks or breakfast to their offer; provide family hampers and/or insert cookery and baking into their activities.
Enriching activity
“One of the children attending our camp "Grace" has attended with her brother for a couple of years now and has always been in her brother shadow, are both from a very deprived family background often taking food parcels that have been provided home with them for tea. As this year we were able to offer things such as the dance lab "Grace" was able to have the confidence to leave her brother and go with some other girls of a similar age to learn a dance routine something "Grace" had never done before."
"Grace" absolutely shone and even came away with an award of recognition for how well she had done. Without this "Grace" may have still been shy, hiding behind her brother not socialising with other children her own age and not realising that she may be good or have a talent for something. "Grace" by the end of the 4 weeks was able to perform her routine in front of all the other children and left each day with more and more confidence and smiling, something she didn't often do.”
“The looked after child has been helped to develop skills in the garden and developing their love of nature. This has prompted them to join a gardening club.”
“Children were taught how to express their feelings through artwork duringa workshop. A child in year 5 brought artwork in the next day, after reflecting on the previous day. They had made a colourful picture, which included words and friends. When asked about his picture, he described it as one of the best days he had ever had. All his friends had smiling faces, and the picture popped with bright colours.”
Here in Leeds we were delighted with the breadth of activities on offer to our young people and are proud about our enrichment within Healthy Holidays: We saw headteachers leading provision within schools offering ‘forest school’, waterslides and encouraging tasting of home grown rhubarb by comparison to ‘Tangfastic’ sweets; Leeds City College undertook a programme targeting young people aged 15-16 aiming to familiarise them with the college environment at a less busy period than term time and demonstrating the breadth of opportunity offered under the umbrella of ‘digital skills’; Leeds City Council’s Community Hub provision continued the well-developed and comprehensive programme working with libraries; Active Leeds and commissioned arts and theatre groups and within the third sector we saw growing, picking and outdoor cooking sessions as well as programmes with an emphasis on sewing and craft activity. We are confident there was provision tailored for eligible children within Leeds and the range of activities available was too extensive to detail in full- but we’ve included one provider’s activities over the summer as an example of how fantastic the schemes are:
“Cooking, prepping, budgeting, skills, knowledge, healthy eating. Dancing, singing and British sign language. Go Ape, outdoor activities designed to challenge pupils physically and mentally. Mini bushcraft, foraging, nature walking, den building, camp fires, outdoor cooking - skills and experience, nutritious signposting, water slide, outdoor survival, painting. Bushcraft skills and introduction to the adventures available outdoors, allotment growth, self sufficiency and maintaining food. Multi sports camp, signposting healthy lifestyles and eating, football, dodgeball, cricket, basket ball, team and individual sport development, arts and crafts. Activity and fitness venue, climbing, balancing, jumping and swinging across obstacles developing skills. Lineham farm, cycling, healthy eating, walking, archery, meeting Leeds United stars, outdoor cooking, physical activities, team building and getting children and adults physically active. Fun, engaging and enriching adventures at residential.”
Physical activity
100% of our providers met the Framework Standard.
“Over the 4 weeks at the Healthy Holidays East Leeds camp many young people came with not an ounce of confidence. However, through our persistence and consistency in building relationships with the young people, I noticed a massive improvement. They tried new foods they have never heard of, they pushed themselves and learnt lots of new skills and tricks in dance and most importantly made new friendships. Tutors created a safe environment for the young people to explore their own strengths and ideas through team building exercises, sports activities and dance. This led to a significant improvement in their social skills, self-esteem and mental and physical health and well-being. It was great to hear such positive feedback from the young people and their parents/carers about this camp such as “we can’t wait for the next one!”
Here in Leeds 100% of our providers met the Framework Standard of children and young people engaging in 60 minutes of physical activity during the Healthy Holidays session and all were assessed as either ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ in this area. Again, the types of activities on offer were broad, ranging from traditional football and multi-sports based camps to dance based workshops and activity centre assault courses. We continued to encourage off site trips as part of Healthy Holiday provision and this promoted participation in activities such as ice skating, roller blading and high ropes. We continued to invest in ‘Swimming Catch Up’ sessions for children and young people who may have missed out on lessons due to previous Covid restrictions or who have otherwise low attainment in respect of this lifesaving skill. Providers worked hard to ensure sessions, especially in relation to physical activity, were accessible and tailored to the children and young people they were working with. For example, one provider worked with Active Leeds to secure dedicated swimming for young people in need of the tuition but who would not have attended a session with younger children.
Nutritional education
“Our Summer camp provided opportunities for our children including our SEND pupils to engage in daily, fun physical activities, such as dancing, climbing, and multi-sports. They learned about the importance of healthy eating and basic food technology skills through cooking workshops. The children were able to make new friendships, take part in team-building activities, and have the chance to express themselves and learn who they are whilst also respecting the views and opinions of others.”
“After attending our summer camp, a couple of children have told us how they now help out at meal times at home. One parent told us their child was able to butter their toast at breakfast time after learning basic cooking skills.”
Our commissioning of Zest Foodwise to undertake work specific to nutritional education and accessible to all HAF providers produced excellent resources promoting the key elements of nutritional education for children and families, including the comprehensive Healthy Eating Toolkits. In 2023, Zest Foodwise provided training on games for children and young people to support fun learning in relation to healthy eating.
Some providers had told us they struggled with the nutritional education requirement of the scheme. However, through Quality Assurance it often became clear that nutrition and healthy lifestyle messages were embedded within provision, especially the multi sports based clubs where hydration and healthy food were highlighted as critical to athletic performance.
Celebrating inclusion for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities
4,141 children and young people identifying as having a special educational need or disability took part in Healthy Holidays Leeds in 2023.
“Our student who is a young carer has few opportunities outside of school due to his mother's visual impairment - we were able to provide him with enriching experiences, a chance to 'be a child' during the holidays and to provide support for him as we do during the school term. Our students who are refugees are from families who have very little due to their uprooting from their homes. Our ability to provide them with experiences they may never have and providing 2 meals a day took away financial pressure from their families and allowed them to enjoy a summer similar to those of their peers. Our student with an EHCP finds camp the perfect way to stay in routine and has meant that his attendance has improved hugely as a result.”
In Leeds, we commission bespoke Healthy Holidays provision through schools for children and young people who identify as having special educational needs and/or disabilities. We know we are fortunate to have the engagement of our specialist schools enabling this tailored provision. However, in addition, our generic Healthy Holiday providers are inclusive and encourage participation from children and young people with additional needs as our case studies demonstrate.
“This is now the second year that we have ran our programme in its current format and we have always worked hard to accommodate our SEND pupils and to make the experience as rewarding as possible for them. We always employ a dedicated SEND specialist throughout the whole of our programme and have used the same person for the past 2 years with great success. Before every week starts we sit down as a group with the profiles of the SEND pupils and share issues that might arise and possible strategies to use in certain situations. We also met with this group of pupils every week to ensure that they felt fully supported and included and that our range of activities was inclusive . We also provided a dedicated quiet area for every break time so that all pupils could have the option of being on their own and this area was always staffed to fully support the pupils. At the end of the 4 weeks, we met and reviewed the success of our provision for our SEND pupils and wrote down future plans.”
Signposting and referrals
“Vi and Jo are sisters who came to us for the first time during the summer healthy holidays programme. They were very thin and filled their pockets with food every day. We spoke to their mum about the local food pantry and helped her with some community resources (she had struggled previously as she doesn't speak much English). We saw the sisters during term time in youth theatre and monitored their condition, celebrating improvements with them. During winter healthy hols, the girls were noticeably less worried about grabbing food, and are not as thin as they were. Other benefits such as improved concentration are apparent as well. Their mum spoke about the summer as a turning point for their family, and feels they are much more able to live well than they were. This winter we were able to provide additional advice about heating and gave mum a warm space in the community centre while the sessions ran.”
The opportunity to signpost and refer families to further sources of support added value to the Healthy Holidays programme and included: Advice agencies; DWP; Employment and Skills; local Council Tax Support and Free School Meals; Leeds School Uniform Exchange; Healthy Start and many more. Sessions also raised awareness of providers’ core term time activities promoting participation for children and young people on an ongoing basis.
“Healthy Holidays makes a significant difference in parents’ lives. For example, one parent was a new international resident in the local area therefore, Healthy Holidays was socially beneficial because it gave them access to families in the local area who can now act as a social support system. Parent F disclosed that she is currently undergoing cancer treatment therefore, Healthy Holidays has given their children purpose and something fun to look forward to, after having an emotional year. Parent A highlighted that Healthy Holidays has helped their family meet their rising financial responsibilities following the pandemic and current cost of living crisis. Healthy Holidays provision of free food and activities has taken a huge weight of Parent As shoulders which will unfortunately become a reoccurring concern as the holidays and provision ends.”
