Class Act: Hayling College and Park Community School students write their own stories for The News

Here are the stories produced by the school.

Park Community School '˜MUNCH' program - battling holiday hunger

School break may be a time to look forward to. The opportunity to go abroad with family and enjoy your free time without the pressure of work or school. But for many families in the UK, this simply is not the case.

All around the UK, an increasing number of teenagers and kids are going hungry during the school holidays. Unfortunately, this is an issue on the rise, as more families are struggling to provide nutritious daily meals due to poverty and the lack of free school meals.

This new added stress for parents, and their families, is something that Park Community School in Leigh Park want to help eliminate with '˜MUNCH' '“ a project aiming to tackle holiday hunger and help local families in need.

'˜MUNCH ensures that no child, no matter what school or age, needs to go hungry during the holidays,' says Mr Christopher Anders, head teacher at Park Community School.

MUNCH is a program run by Park Community School that started in February 2017 after realising just how big of a problem holiday hunger was in the local area. It involves 20 different organisations that help fund it. 

Children from 34 local schools benefit from Park's enthusiastic catering team, led by award-winning head chef, Steven Cross.

'˜MUNCH provides kids within the local community, and their families, two free meals everyday throughout the holidays, along with activities to keep kids entertained,' said Mr Cross.

'˜Even learning practitioners are involved to help encourage maths and English skills,' he added.

The program not only gives families meals but allows them a social space to enjoy food with their loved ones and other people, two days a week in term time and every day in holiday time. It even runs on Christmas Day, providing a Christmas dinner for kids, family and the elderly who would otherwise spend Christmas alone.

The project relieves the stress on parents to provide sufficient meals to kids, taking some financial worries off their plates, and putting good food onto it.

Park Community School also has their '˜MUNCH fridge', located in the Dickinson Centre, which has food readily available to those who are not able to participate in the MUNCH dinners, yet who may still be struggling.

As holiday hunger continues to rise, Park wants to be there for families that need that extra support within the holidays to ensure every child is getting the nutrition they need and to make holidays that little bit easier for families in poverty, proving that like its motto, Park Community School 'is much more than just a school'.

Hayling College '“ Staff and students get to know each other at bonding day 

Hayling College has successfully held its first '˜Bonding Day' to help staff and students get to know each other.

Preparation for the event started in October.

Mr Carter, the head of Year 8, organised the occasion through many days of planning and work.

The day was organised to help the children of The Hayling College make friends with other students. 

Each pupil is assigned a house when they join the school. Despite students being in their houses for several years we found that most students do not know the people in their house very well at all '“ until now!

Each house had to work together to earn house points throughout the day. Mr Carter realised it would be a good idea to let students interact with other people from their houses in a specific event.

Bonding day was organised so that everyone played a part in each activity with the added motivation of your house hopefully winning at the end of the day. In small groups students also worked with the teachers that are in the same house. This resulted in students meeting new pupils and potentially new teachers.

Bonding Day took place on a rotation where each house went round to different activities. Activities included artwork, team quiz and team-building activities in the Sports Hall.

The pupils who took part certainly seemed to enjoy the experience.

Year 7 student, Chloe, said: '˜It helped develop our friendships.'

'˜It was truly a day to remember,' added Year 8 student, Matthew.

Overall the event was a huge success and everyone is already looking forward to next year's Bonding Day.

Vigilant House took the trophy this year but perhaps one of the other houses will win next time!