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School Holiday Enrichment Programme

Published: 13/08/2019

Flintshire County Council hosts the Welsh Local Government’s (WLGA) School Holiday Enrichment Programme (SHEP) for the second year this summer.

SHEP is a WLGA initiative which has been running since 2016.  It is a school-based programme that provides healthy meals, food and nutrition education, physical activity and enrichment sessions to children in areas of social deprivation during the summer holidays.

‘Food and Fun’ is the brand used to promote the clubs to children and families.

The programme runs four days a week for the second, third and fourth week of the school holidays at four sites – Ysgol Maes Y Felin, Holywell, St David’s High School, Saltney, Queensferry Primary School and Flint High School. There are 40 places at each site and take up has been extremely positive.

Cllr. Ian Roberts, Leader of Flintshire County Council and Cabinet Member for Education said;

“It’s a sad state of affairs that in the 21st century, children go hungry during school holidays as families struggle to afford or access food that provides a healthy diet.  During term time they can take advantage of breakfast clubs and free school meals, but as food poverty is a growing issue in Wales, schemes such as this one really make a difference – not only to provide children with two healthy meals a day, but to encourage them to be more active, make new friends and engage more with school.

A typical day runs from 9am to 1pm and includes breakfast, fun learning activities, physical activities and sports sessions and ends with lunch.

Chief Officer for Education and Youth, Claire Homard, said:

“Parents are invited to join their children for lunch each Thursday that the scheme is running. Involving the whole family in this way can help improve parents’ health and wellbeing, helps them meet the cost of school holidays and encourages them to learn new skills.  We can also offer them help to signpost them to other services which could support them and our aim next year is to run “Food and Fun” in a further 4 sites.”

NEWydd Catering kindly donated nutritious breakfast and lunch food items for the scheme and

Steve Jones, Managing Director of NEWydd Catering and Cleaning said

“We are proud to support this fantastic initiative for a second year. Our suppliers have been incredibly generous in supporting the provision of breakfast and lunch for the children of Flintshire. Ravenscroft and Thackeray, Jones Price, The Little Food Company and Mackro, Queensferry have donated many items, enabling our dedicated staff to produce nutritious and balanced menu’s across the programme.”