Dozens of children have had the chance to learn all the different safety measures before they head back to school.

The young people who are involved with the North Allerdale Development Trust (NADT) jumped at the chance to join sessions during the lockdown.

The team reached out to the youngsters asking them if they would like to take part in a programme and they were overwhelmed by the response.

Pleased to be able to help the children, Clare Stabbler for the NADT said: “When March arrived everything stopped. We tried to keep in contact with all the young people over the internet. When we decided to start a programme we had more than 150 them come forward and want to take part.

“Children that had previously worked with us also wanted to join in.

“We used the time to help relieve some of the anxiety about heading back to school.”

Founded in 2008, NADT is a registered charity that focuses on the support and development of community projects that stimulate new opportunities or improved facilities for all residents across the area.

Their objectives include: the provision of community buildings, promotion of the voluntary sector, relief of unemployment and the provision of education.

The youngsters have spent weeks building bird boxes and owl boxes for Crooklands who were pleased to collect them. A spokesman said: “Over the past four years they have developed an award winning non-formal education provision (EIP) providing young people from across the north and west of Cumbria the opportunity to address their issues and well-being outside of a formal educational setting.

“Through Covid-19 NADT have continued to support over 150 young people and as soon as government guidelines allowed, developed “Summer EIP” providing a fun, supportive and informative environment to help young people address issues that may have arisen through lockdown and reduce anxiety and worries they may have about the future.”