Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) 2024 to 2025 programme - Annual report

Funded by the Department for Education, the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme has been delivered in Brighton & Hove since 2021.

During the school Easter, summer, and Christmas holidays, HAF provides free enriching activities and a meal. HAF is for school-aged children and young people in Reception to Year 11, who receive benefits-related free school meals.

Watch our film from a Brighton Table Tennis Club HAF holiday camp to get an idea of what HAF has to offer. 

Aims of the programme

There are many benefits for children who attend the HAF programme including:

• receiving healthy and nutritious meals
• maintaining a healthy level of physical activity
• being happy, having fun and meeting new friends
• developing a greater understanding of food, nutrition, and other health-related issues
• taking part in fun and engaging activities that support their development
• feeling safe and secure
• getting access to the right support services
• returning to school feeling engaged and ready to learn

Families also benefit when HAF providers include their needs. They do this when they plan and deliver their programme through:

• providing opportunities to get involved in cookery classes
• signposting them to other sources of information and support, like health services or employment and education opportunities

We'd like to thank the providers who supported children and young people as part of HAF 2024.  

The providers were: 

1. Activ8 for Kids
2. ActiveMe 360
3. Artpod
4. B Starz Academy 
5. Barracudas 
6. Black and Minority Ethnic Young People's Project (BMEYPP) 
7. Brighton & Hove Albion Foundation
8. Brighton & Hove Food Partnership 
9. Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (BACA) 
10. Brighton Table Tennis Club 
11. Brunswick Buddies 
12. Create Music 
13. Downs Junior School 
14. Drama Kids Sussex
15. East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service
16. Elm Grove Out of School Hours Club (The Terriers) 
17. Family Hubs- Tarner
18. Family Hubs- East Brighton (Whitehawk)
19. Family Hubs- West Area (Hangleton & Portslade)
20. Goldstone Primary School
21. Honeycroft
22. House of Culture
23. Impact Initiatives
24. Junior Adventure Group
25. Next Thing Education
26. Pioneer Childcare 
27. Play at Carden 
28. Premier Education
29. Press Play Films
30. Quiet Down There
31. Russell Martin Foundation 
32. SportsCool Brighton 
33. Starfish Kids Club 
34. Stay and Play 
35. Summer Adventure Camps 
36. Sussex Kids Hub 
37. Tarner Community Project
38. Thirdspace Youth Theatre
39. Trust for Developing Communities
40. V.I.M (Very Important Minors) Camps 

• number of HAF providers: 40
• number of HAF programmes: 129
• number of HAF places (sessions) attended: 15,696
• number of unique participants who: 
  • were receiving benefits-related free school meals: 1,975
  • attended under discretionary criteria: 17
  • reported special educational needs or disabilities: 592 (29.71%)
• percentage of school-aged children receiving benefits-related free school meals who attended HAF: 26.29% (based on January 2024 census)
• proportion of primary aged HAF participants: 1,672 (84.79%)
• proportion of secondary aged HAF participants: 303 (15.21%)  

The number of people who attended HAF in each holiday period 

• Easter 2021: 263
• Summer 2021: 576 
• Winter 2021: 336
• Easter 2022: 545
• Summer 2022: 1084
• Winter 2022: 594
• Easter 2023: 741
• Summer 2023: 1182
• Winter 2023: 661
• Easter 2024: 938
• Summer 2024: 1393
• Winter 2024: 715 

Total HAF grant allocation in 2024 to 2025: £761,040  

Total additional funding: £20,495 

HAF total expenditure in 2024 to 2025: £781,535   

HAF expenditure 2024 to 2025

Breakdown of administrative costs

The general salaries for one programme manager and one administrator (pay, NI, pensions) were £79,942 

This table shows a breakdown of other expenditure 

Brighton & Hove HAF participants benefitted from a wider breadth of providers and programmes in 2024/25 compared with previous years. And though there were 2.9% fewer HAF places procured, there was a decrease in non-attendance which meant a 15.5% increase in the overall number of HAF places attended.  

We increased our efforts to reach more children and young people who receive benefits-related free school meals (FSM), which resulted in 18.1% more unique FSM children and young people having attended HAF.  

With a continued focus on developing the citywide HAF offer for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the programme also celebrated 36.1% more unique SEND participants. 

Key achievements of Brighton & Hove’s HAF offer that deserve celebrating 

The introduction of a pilot whereby selected HAF providers were awarded a higher rate of funding to support more participants with SEND. Thanks go to Artpod and Activ8 for Kids, who increased staffing ratios enabling them to allocate half of their funded HAF places to those with SEND. 

Family Hubs also delivered HAF, providing supported days out to targeted families over Christmas. 

Celebrating Bly Twomey, a 14-year-old from Brighton & Hove, who as one of the youngest members of ParalympicsGB returned with two bronze medals from the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris. Bly began playing table tennis in 2021 at a multi-sport session hosted by Brighton Table Tennis Club, funded by HAF. 

We surveyed families after each holiday period with an online survey. In total we had 627 responses to the survey.  

93.6% of families said they would recommend HAF to other families with eligible children.  

We know that HAF benefits families in different ways, when asked families expressed where they perceived value: 

• 63.5% said it provided their child with food
• 74.6% said it provided something for the child to do during the holidays
• 58.1% said it provided enriching activity
• 57.9% said it helped their child/children to make or be with friends
• 47.2% said it supported the child’s personal development
• 35.2% said it allowed adults to attend work
• 41.5% said it provided respite to family  

Testimonials

“First time my children ever attended anything like this and honestly they had the time of their lives! They had a lovely roast dinner for lunch, played so many new games and even came home with a bag full of food items for the household which came in so helpful and even some toys! Absolutely over the moon! Thank you so very much for the HAF Programme” 

“This service is such a valuable resource when activities cost so much to do and if you have more than one child it can make it too costly. I don’t want the children stuck on screens all day during colder months.” 

“I was thrilled, not only is this great for my son as he gets under-stimulated and hyper when not doing anything, but as I have no support this gave me few hours to rest as I have long term health issues so thank you without this I wouldn't of found the holidays as easy.” 

“I’ve never been aware of such activities being free for families like mine, so for my children to be able to experience Artpod has been amazing for them and to hear all about their days and seeing their amazing creations has been a real delight. It helps when the staff are so lovely and make the children's time so memorable.” 

“It's an absolute lifeline for our family - single parent to an adopted child with an EHCP.” 

“The impact of being offered the opportunity for our daughter to attend Barracudas was huge for our family. Unfortunately, my husband lost his job in October; so financially things have been very tight, so there is no way we would have been able to afford daily activities or to pay for her to attend Barracudas. She is very much a child who NEEDS to be busy and social, so I think without the opportunity to attend she would have struggled over the holidays, and this would have caused greater behaviour issues.”  

“Great, as a self-employed single parent HAF has been an absolute game changer and I am so grateful for the service.” 

“My daughter absolutely loves these clubs and they really support our hardship we are experiencing” 

All families accessing HAF were signposted and referred to other support services available across the city via the Family Hubs and Family Help Online offer. 

Families were also offered cookery workshops with their children. These were delivered by Brighton & Hove Food Partnership at their Community Kitchen. 

They included topics such as: 

• healthy packed lunches
• low and no energy cooking
• cooking on a low budget 

Families known to the Family Hubs, were also supported on days out with the Family Hubs teams from three areas of the city. 

Due to the way the school Christmas holidays fell, we also supported our providers to distributed 486 high-quality food and activity hampers to families unable to access four days of face-to-face HAF activity. 

In 2024, the following groups attended our steering group: 

• Early Years and Childcare 
• Ethnic Minority Achievement Service
• Family Hubs
• Free School Meals team
• Public Health 
• SEND Short Breaks  

We carried out further targeted consultation with:  

• Parent and Carers’ Council (PaCC) in collaboration with the SEND Short Breaks team
• HAF providers 
• Families accessing HAF   

HAF was represented on citywide strategic working groups including:  

• Education Disadvantage Strategy 2020 to 2026 – part of a working group
• Brighton & Hove Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2019 to 2030 – part of Whole Systems Healthy Weight working group
• Brighton & Hove City Council’s new Sport and Physical Activity Strategy – part of Active Children and Young People’s Alliance working group
• Anti-Poverty Working Group  

Progress made against the aims set for 2024: 

• support HAF providers to meet the training needs of their staff, to create sustainable outcomes in the quality of provision for all children and young people – HAF providers were given individual budgets to put training in place to mixed affect, in 2025 training will be centrally coordinated.
• continue to focus on developing the offer for those with SEND – 157 more unique HAF participants with SEND attended HAF, which equates to a 36.1% increase.
• review and offer support to improve the physical activity element of all providers – the Healthy Lifestyles team completed a Physical Activity Audit, identifying several recommendations to strengthen this area of work
• maximise bookings and reduce non-attendance, to further strengthen the programme’s value for money – an increase in the percentage of bookings was achieved at Easter and Summer, and Winter remained overbooked. Furthermore, the percentage of non-attendance experience fell at Easter, Summer, and Winter. 

In 2025, we aim to: 

• continue to increase access of HAF to those who qualify and have SEND
• continue to maximise bookings and reduce non-attendance, to further strengthen the programme’s value for money
• increase opportunities for 14-to-16-year-olds who qualify for HAF
• address inequality in access to key life skills for those from low-income families.