Slough Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme

The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme provides free enjoyable activities and nutritious meals for primary and secondary school aged children who are in receipt of benefits related free school meals.

Slough Borough Council is working with local schools, voluntary and community organisations, and childcare providers to provide the HAF programme, which covers all major school holidays. The national programme offering free places is funded by the Department for Education.

Children will be able to access:

• 4 sessions (4 hours per session) a week during Easter and Christmas and
• 4 sessions (4 hours per session) for 4 weeks during the summer holidays.

All activities are inclusive at no cost to you. The sessions will include a variety of fun activities, including sports, music, arts, hairdressing, robotics, and other exciting opportunities to learn and develop skills, alongside a nutritious meal each day.

Letters will be sent out to all families with eligible children with a unique code for each child to use. Information of providers offering the programme will be available soon. Parents would need to contact their preferred providers directly to book a place.

• Check Slough HAF for a list of providers and activities.
• Email HAF@slough.gov.uk for further details.

In addition to this programme, families who are eligible for Universal Credit may be able to claim back up to 85% of their childcare costs. Please check Help paying for your childcare on Childcare Choices website to find out more.

Check the You Tube video on Slough Holidays and Food Programme (HAF). Please note: if you access the video on YouTube the subtitles maybe auto generated. Some videos may not have subtitles and may autoplay.

Additional support

The Household Support Fund (HSF) will be used to provide £15, per week per child, to households in receipt of Free School Meals during all school holidays from April 2023 to March 2024.

Early Years settings and schools pay this to families as vouchers or as direct payment to their account.

Some schools have signed up on the HUGG platform to make this payment as HUGG vouchers.

Please contact your childminder/setting/school if you think you are eligible.

Check Slough Borough Council website for:

• details of HSF and
• the cost of living resource pack for advice and support with energy bills and the rise in the cost of living.