Holidays Are Fun annual report 2024 to 2025

The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme is funded by the Department for Education and delivered by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council in partnership with Catalyst. The Stockton-on-Tees HAF Team held a competition to rename the programme and selected "Holidays Are Fun" to remove some of the stigma some parents associated with holiday hunger. Children recognise that using the word HAF means holidays are fun.

HAF is offered to school aged children from reception to year 11 who are in receipt of benefit related free school meals. Recognising that families are struggling in the current cost of living crisis, we have expanded the HAF offer in Stockton-on-Tees to also include families in receipt of universal credit or in financial difficulty. In addition, we have offered vulnerable families open to Children's Services HAF places if referred by their support worker. This allows vulnerable children the opportunity to experience enriching activities in holiday periods, whilst also ensuring they are not hungry when they are not able to access a school meal.

The aims of the HAF programme are to encourage children and young people to:

• eat healthily over the school holidays
• be more active during the school holidays
• be safe and not be socially isolated
• take part in engaging and enriching activities which support the development of resilience, character, and wellbeing along with their wider educational attainment
• have a greater knowledge of health and nutrition
• be more engaged with school and services

HAF is delivered through the main school holidays and offers six weeks of provision with the equivalent of at least four hours a day, four days a week:

• Easter 2024 - one week, minimum of four days
• summer 2024 - at least four weeks, minimum of 16 days
• Christmas 2024 - one week, minimum of four days

During 2024 to 2025 Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council also engaged in a trial in the February 2025 half term holiday which was for one week for a minimum of four days.