The Government has supported a number of brilliant Summer Schemes over the past few months, and I was delighted to visit three in Watford over recess, culminating in the fantastic Fit, Fed and Read Festival.

I was pleased to attend the Watford Gymnastics Club, which is run by a brilliant team who afford young people the chance to learn and develop gymnastics skills over a wide array of apparatus. As well as keeping fit, it was great to see how the relationships between the children were developing as they cheered each other on and encouraged one another with some of the more difficult apparatus.

I received a warm welcome at the Fit, Fed and Read session, which was run by Herts Sport Partnership at Kingsway Junior School. Each session consisted of two hours of physical activity, one hour of fun education and a highly nutritious cooked lunch. It was great to chat to the young people and to hear how the sessions kept them engaged and motivated during the summer holidays.

Watford Observer:

Feeding Futures was another event that I attended, which was run by the Saracens as a free holiday activity camp for children between 8 to 12 years of age who receive free school meals. The Government has put in place provisions to support these families outside of term time and this camp offered two healthy, balanced meals every day, and was coupled with fun educational workshops where the young people learnt the importance of key skills such as teambuilding and healthy cooking.

All of these wonderful events were tied together at the end of the week at the Hertfordshire Sports Village where 400 young people came together to celebrate another successful summer of education, fun and nutrition. It was brilliant to see a number of the England Women’s Rugby Team present, the GB Olympic Rugby 7’s Team and Saracens Mavericks Netball.

Massive congratulations to everyone involved in the events. So much hard work goes into putting them together and they all do such vital work in building healthier futures for our young people.

  • Dean Russell is Conservative MP for Watford