A significant part of the marketing for Bexley’s HAF Programme is supported by the strong, positive relationships that have been developed with many schools across Bexley, particularly over the past year. Schools share the HAF brochure with families before the booking system opens and voucher codes are emailed out. The brochure includes information about all available clubs, giving parents and carers time to explore the activities on offer without feeling pressured to book immediately before places fill up.

Posters have also been distributed across a wide range of organisations and businesses throughout Bexley, focusing on locations where they are likely to have the greatest impact. These include GP surgeries, supermarkets, libraries, newsagents, children’s centres, play centres, schools, churches and food banks.

We also take a targeted approach with schools that have issued a high number of vouchers but have seen lower levels of uptake. Information is shared with these schools about families who have not yet used their vouchers, allowing family liaison officers or pastoral teams to signpost those families directly to the available HAF provision.

To help promote the programme more effectively to secondary-aged young people, our coordinator asks providers who accommodate this age group to produce a flyer. These flyers are then compiled into a booklet highlighting secondary provision and shared with secondary schools, who distribute it directly to parents and young people via their school email addresses.

The council advertises the programme on its dedicated HAF programme webpage, which is available all year round. The webpage is updated prior to each holiday period to list all the providers delivering activities as part of the next HAF Programme, a description of the activities they’ll be offering and contact details for parents to speak to the providers if they have any queries. The Communications Team also include messages about our upcoming HAF Programmes in the Council’s weekly bulletins, newsletters and social media accounts.

We have run parent meet-and-greet online sessions as an opportunity for parents to find out more about Bexley’s HAF Programme. Some of our providers also joined these sessions to give parents the chance to meet them and ask questions.

Our providers have also done their own marketing of their provision through schools, social media and their own websites.