Schools are opening on Christmas Day to ensure that families facing financial hardship and people who struggle with loneliness can enjoy a Christmas dinner.

A school in Somerset has joined forces with a football club as a part of a campaign to provide free food, transport, gifts and entertainment for more than 100 people who are alone at Christmas.

Frome Town Football Club in Somerset has hosted the Big Christmas Get-Together for eight years and this year the town’s Christ Church C of E First School will also take part because of the high demand.

And a secondary school in Hampshire is also opening its doors tomorrow to ensure that children from deprived backgrounds can have a Christmas dinner.

Around 60 youngsters and their families will get turkey and all the trimmings at Park Community School, according to reports.

The school serves a deprived area on the outskirts of Portsmouth called Leigh Park.

When Christ Church School heard demand for the Frome Town FC event had “outstripped supply”, headteacher Rupert Kaye offered the school hall as an extra venue.

Helping families in poverty

Christ Church said it will join the effort this year not just to help combat loneliness but also “the modern-day curses of food and energy poverty”.

Mr Kaye said some families in Frome cannot afford to heat or light their homes during the day, even during the winter months.

He said: “That means that some children will actually spend some days in the dark, huddled under a duvet.

“We also know that some children will not eat a hot home-cooked meal for the whole of the two-week Christmas break.”

The school currently has 30 guests booked to attend its event tomorrow and they will receive a three-course Christmas lunch.

Mr Kaye added: “In addition, several school staff have already volunteered to come in on Christmas Day to set up, help out and tidy away afterwards.”

Christ Church School is based in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Somerset and the number of pupils receiving free school meals has risen from 40 per cent to 51 per cent in just 18 months, Mr Kaye said.

“It is not what people would expect with a market town such as Frome,” he said.

It was announced last week that the Department for Education will quadruple funding for a programme offering free school meals and activities for poorer children during the holidays.

Charities and community groups are being asked to bid for a slice of a £9 million fund to deliver holiday clubs for pupils eligible for free school meals in the 2019 summer break.

The programme expands upon a £2 million pilot holiday-meals scheme launched last year, which reached 18,000 children, according to DfE statistics.