Flintshire high school host activities programme for pupils

It's the second year Argoed High School has hosted the SHEP (Summer Holidays Enrichment Programme) Food and Fun education programme, which is funded by Welsh Government and administered by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) in partnership with Flintshire County Council.

It provides healthy meals, food and nutrition education, physical activity and enrichment sessions to children, and is a great opportunity for children who will be moving up to the school next month to have fun and feel at home in their new environment.

Rachel Boyd, Club Leader, and Logan McCormack, during a fruit art activity with dragon fruit, lychees and jackfruit. The activity helps children gain confidence touching, smelling, and trying different foods.

The programme, which had an Olympics theme this year, is also open to Year 7 students at the school, giving them a chance to share their experiences of their first year of high school life with the youngsters.

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All the children received a free breakfast, snack, and lunch each day, and more than 40 parents attended a special lunch at the end of each week, giving them a chance to eat with their children and learn more about the programme's various activities.

Josh Jones, Max Wood, and William Pae with their creation using items Tim Pugh, Environmental Artist, collected from beaches.

As well as learning about healthy eating during fun, nutrition sessions, each day children participated in a series of activities including arts and crafts, Olympic challenges, dance, circus skills, animal handling, making bird feeders, and interactive building sessions with Robertson Construction, and much more.

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Rachel Boyd, Argoed High School's pastoral support officer, led the programme at the school in conjunction with teachers and Year 9 volunteers, Morgan Eaton and Alex Payne, who were on hand to help at each session.

Evan Cooper with a chinchilla during an animal visit.

Elizabeth Hobday handles a snake.

Both students hugely enjoyed helping the children and felt that the experience had developed their own social skills as well.

Parental feedback has been very positive, too. Among the comments written on Post It notes which were later created into a display, parents said the programme had "improved their child's confidence ahead of moving up to high school", and "got them excited about healthy eating", as well as "providing an excellent variety of interesting and thought-provoking activities".

Autumn and Isabelle Walker get creative with recycling in a junk modelling session.

Miss Boyd said: "I am incredibly proud of all the children who have participated in the SHEP programme. 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.

Beatrix Evans and Matilda Cooper make a fruit salad in a cooking session.

Jayden Roberts and Harrison Walker design a super structure in the Robertson Construction activity.

"The children 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.

Anneke Perrett, business manager at the school, helped coordinate the programme. She said: "The holiday scheme has been a great success once again. It has been wonderful to see the children enjoying themselves, trying out new activities, and learning at the same time during what has been a varied and jam-packed timetable each week. It's lovely for parents to feel involved, too, making it more of a whole family experience.

"I would like to thank Jane Bartley, Healthy Schools Officer, Flintshire County Council, for her support and enabling us to run the club. We look forward to another successful programme next year!"