HS

THOUSANDS OF FREE PLACES AVAILABLE FOR SCHOOL HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES

Manchester City Council is offering thousands of FREE places for children’s activities over the school holidays. In addition to the activities, each place booked will include a FREE meal during the day.

You must be a Manchester resident. See below to find out whether your child is eligible to take part and to book sessions;

3 STEPS TO BOOK ACTIVITIES

1. Register for benefits related free school meals – Click Here
2. Create a Family MCRactive ‘Go’ account – Click Here
3. Find and book your session on the Activity Finder – Click Here (Filter by Location, Provider, Date and more)

In order to book your place, users are required to have a Manchester Active Go account. Manchester Active Go is a new way to manage your health and activity across Manchester and will facilitate your bookings for sessions you’re interested in. If you have not created an account you will not be able to book any activities. 

To create your account, please CLICK HERE and follow the advised steps.

Once your account is set up, please scroll to the bottom of the page, or use our Activity Finder and follow the below steps to book your space:

Filter by

  • Location
  • Provider
  • Date
  • and Much more

From September 1st this year there will be two categories of Free School Meals:

Targeted – for those pupils in households in receipt of Universal credit with annual household earnings of £7,400 or less. Pupils eligible for targeted Free School Meals will attract pupil premium and other disadvantage funding for their schools, as well as other education entitlements such as Holiday Activities & Food (HAF) and the ‘extended rights’ element of school travel assistance.

Expanded – those who do not qualify for targeted Free School Meals but who are in households receiving universal credit. These children will only be eligible for free meals and not HAF.

You can find out what your child/children may be entitled to via this government weblink: Best Start In Life — Childcare Checker

 

In order for the system to automatically check your child’s eligibility for free holiday activities you need to make sure that your Go account is up to date and all your information is correct.

The system will automatically run checks against your child’s;

– Surname

– Forename

– DOB

– Postcode

It is very important that all this information is correct and up to date.

To create a Manchester Active Go account, click here

Welcome to the HAF (Holiday Activity & Food Programme) Annual Report 2025-26.

VIEW THE REPORT HERE

Manchester City Council’s ambition is to provide high quality youth, play and participation services and sustainable outcomes for children and young people and the delivery of the HAF programme is a key part of this.

Funded through the Department of Education the HAF programme is a targeted service supporting some of our most vulnerable young people and primarily focused those on means tested free school meals. In Manchester we also support children and young people in priority groups such as children with special educational needs and disabilities, cared for young people and young carers.