Children enjoy food and fun at Flintshire school’s first ever summer holiday club

Staff at Argoed High School who welcomed sixty children to experience a host of activities at the school’s first ever summer holiday scheme are delighted with the success of the programme.  

The children, who will be moving up to the school next month, and several year 7 students, took part in the SHEP (Summer Holidays Enrichment Programme) Food and Fun Summer Scheme during the first three weeks of the summer holidays.   

All the children received a free breakfast, snack, and lunch each day, and parents also had an opportunity to be involved with a parent lunch held at the end of each week where children and parents were able to eat together.  In the last week, a ‘Bag Bwyd’ was provided to each family in attendance which included lots of store cupboard items to use at home, with a top up bag for any families with siblings.   

As well as learning about healthy eating during fun nutrition sessions, each day children participated in a programme of activities including arts and crafts, indoor and outdoor sports, circus skills, fun science experiments with Xplore!, making bird feeders, film screenings, and interactive building sessions with the company building the new school, Robertson Construction, as well as much more.  All the activities were designed to be inclusive so that children of all abilities could join in and have fun. 

The scheme, which is run in partnership with the Welsh Local Government Association and Flintshire County Council, was coordinated by Anneke Perrett, business manager, and led by Rachel Boyd, Argoed High’s pastoral support officer, in conjunction with teachers and year 9 volunteers, Niamh Howes Patterson and Eve Worthington, who were on hand to help at each session.

Mrs Perrett, who has previously arranged the SHEP programme at another school, said: “We are really pleased with how well the holiday scheme has gone. 

The response has been fantastic, and it has been wonderful to see the children enjoying themselves, trying out new activities and learning at the same time in what has been a jam-packed timetable each week.

“Based on the success of the programme, I am certainly keen to organise this again for next year and hopefully it will become a regular feature in our school’s annual calendar.

Miss Boyd said: “I am incredibly proud of all the children who have participated in the SHEP programme, which has been a great success.

They took part in a wide variety of multi sports, including gymnastics, and have certainly shown their hidden sporting talents, as well as showcasing their cooking skills in the nutrition sessions where they got to try a range of different fruit and vegetables.

“The pupils have massively gained in confidence through taking part in all the activities and were very excited to see their new school. 

They developed a good rapport with staff, and have made positive relationships with each other too, which has been rewarding to see as this will help to further boost their confidence when they come to the school in September. 

Harley Hughes’s mum, Kirstie, commented on how valuable the scheme had been for her son. 

She said: “Harley is very shy, but he has walked on his own to and from school which has got him ready for coming in September.

“He’s in such a good routine; still getting up and being able to have something to go to which challenges them with different activities they would never ever try otherwise!! 

Cheerleading for one is something Harley would never choose to do, but he was pleasantly surprised with how much he enjoyed it.

“I can only thank you (Argoed staff) for the time and effort that you all put in through the summer holiday for our children. 

It’s absolutely amazing and I hope this is still running when my other two children reach this age because it’s fantastic!! Thanks again.”