The following is feedback the we received from the Department for Education during its visit in the summer of 2022.

Thank you so much again for organising such an inspiring and enjoyable day last week. I really enjoyed visiting all the clubs and seeing all the children having such a great time.

The main points from the feedback I will be giving to the HAF team is:

• The programme is very popular with pupils, parents and providers, with all providers asking for additional funding and saying they could have filled many more places.
• Great to see Local Authority (LA) and providers planning positively for the future if HAF funding were to end
• The food element remains trickier for some providers, with some struggling with the hot food element. LA encouraging providers to think more creatively about how this can be achieved such as employing school cooks.
• In some cases there was a differentiation of HAF and paying pupils, for example only HAF pupils being offered hot food and paying pupils bringing in packed lunches, risk this could lead to stigma of being FSM pupils.
• Providers are offering parents the option to top-up the funding for around £7-10 to make a full day. There was good take-up of this offer. The LA encouraging providers to Ofsted register and raise awareness of other help with childcare costs.
• Some providers mentioned take-up although can’t be sure until data in it felt like this was minimal and most children were turning up. Providers proactively contact families and run waiting lists to fill places.
• High demand for SEND places, some anxiety from parents that HAF is not for SEND children, LA proactively advertising this isn’t the case. In some instances parents are not telling providers about the child’s needs when signing up so providers don’t access funding for more or specialist staff to support children.
• LA excellent at using other services such as social workers to signpost HAF to families who may need it, including Ukrainian families, and being creative with how to maximise the benefits such as using Short breaks funding.

In addition I’ll be passing on how passionate you are to making HAF a success in Devon and how organised and proactive you are in searching out opportunities to maximise the funding you have and realise the benefits of the HAF programme.

Many thanks again for a great day.