A HOLIDAY club in Trowbridge is jumping for joy after being awarded nearly £4,000 by the Big Lottery Fund.

Pupils at Oasis Academy Longmeadow will use the £3,841 grant towards their Holiday Fun Days to run workshops along with trips to places of interest.

Headteacher Caroline Cox, who set up the club two years ago with teaching assistant Leanne Hinton, never expected the club to be so popular.

“We are going to use this money for trips that we can go on that are both fun and children can learn from,” she added.

“We wanted to do museum trips because it means we can extend knowledge through real-life experiences.

“It offers the children a fun day. The idea came from the children. They always say to me that they like coming into school and I thought a couple of years ago that, if I ever became head, I would open it up in the holidays and do a fun day club.

"It is a long holiday for children if they don’t go on holiday so at least for one day during that week or two they can have a fun day out.”

After applying for the grant in the summer, Mrs Cox said around 36 children attend the fun day in each holiday, which takes on a theme such as science, maths and sport.

The children also made an afternoon buffet for parents. The group hopes their first outing will be at Woodland Adventures near Corsham.

Mrs Cox said: “When we took our Year 6 pupils to Woodland Adventures last year, we were able to walk through the woods.

"Some pupils said: ‘Miss we’ve never walked through the woods before’ which was quite sad. Being able to identify trees was brilliant."

“Children really enjoy themselves and they want to come into school which they see in a different light and realise learning is a lot more fun than they expected.”