To wonder what will happen about the government's 'free' breakfast club proposal?!

Sounds very sensible!
I guess it could be wholemeal toast for all the bagel haters on this thread!

(Really want a cinnamon and raisin bagel now!)

Rather than free breakfast I think they missed a trick with free school lunches for all children. Easier to implement. Still feeding hungry children.
But as others have put, a breakfast club and therefore earlier drop off is all about getting people to supposedly work.

THIS! This is the real motivation behind it!

Oh, and we tried the "free bagel" shizzle.

We needed two four slice toasters, three staff, a fucking freezer, and then the same staff to stand out at the gate handing out. And we needed no gluten bagels, no sesame bagels so mmm just a bit of plain bagel.

Then the site team spent half an hour clearing up half chewed bagel from the playground so PE could start.

It's like the same people that think "it looks so easy to own a cafe" have the same approach.

Fully agree that this is about forcing parents to work more hours not feeding children. Universal credit will be able to sanction more people as "childcare is available", even if it's rubbish and not properly accessible for some. My DS has additional needs (awaiting formal diagnosis) and can't cope with breakfast club as it consists of lots of people milling around in the hall and eating "strange" food with others (he has familiar food in his pack up for lunch).

Of course it is but it's part of being a responsible parent to ensure your child goes to school having had breakfast! Doing this just takes responsibility off parents and onto the state.

Support staff have on-costs: LGPS @28% and unfunded NI increase.

You cannot have one person running it because what happens if they are sick? Who minds the kids whilst that person is supervising meal prep. Whilst WRAC doesn't have the same ratio requirements as school, you can't safely run a club of 50 kids from R to 6 with one person.

For the person picking up the breakfast club food, they would need to tell their car insurance.

These aren't "oh it's easy" considerations.

I have NO issue with WRAC, but it's not as easy as some out of touch political genius with zero understanding of school budgets makes it sound on Sunday morning radio.

Thank you for putting it much better than I could have!

A lot of kids just aren't hungry when they get up. It was always an effort to get my son to eat breakfast at 7.30am.

It has also been proven that children learn better on a full stomach. A better educated society is a benefit to all (apart from the oligarchs who want to keep populations as undereducated as possible).

Honestly, it’s absolutely grim that children are eating bits of bagel, off one large communal plate, in their classrooms, whilst getting greasy fingers all over their books. Classrooms are a learning environment. Meals (including breakfast), should be eaten at a table, (not a desk), off their own plate, (so they are not dropping crumbs everywhere), whilst socialising with other people. During registration, children should be focused on their teacher, who will be taking registration, giving out notices, getting everyone in the right mind set for the day ahead.

Eating breakfast at home, or at breakfast club (however that operates), fine. Eating bits of bagel in their classrooms is akin to eating in front of the TV.

Can you imagine training to be a teacher, spending hours each week planning lessons etc - and every morning you're getting down on your hands and knees with a dustpan and brush, weaving your way around thirty small chairs and half a dozen tables, and later finding bits of toast jammed here and there? I mean, yes, we could ask teachers to "just" pass round some toast and plates, "just" supervise thirty young children as they eat, "just" have the plates collected, "just" have them sent off to be cleaned, "just" do a quick sweep... But as all these "justs" snowball, we should ask whether it's right to cut into the busy school day with something that should have been done before it began. It's hard enough to retain teachers already. And it's not why I send my children to school.

What about children with allergies? One plate wouldn't work unfortunately.

They get theirs on a paper plate with cling film on at lunch. The kitchen would do the same for the bagels I suppose but there are no children who can't have bagels and butter.

There's paper towels for makeshift plates. There just doesn't seem to be a mess. Not as much mess as the milk with the straw wrappers and the satsumas peels and apple cores make at 11am anyway.

It’s not because the government are obliged to feed everybody’s children, it’s more that they can’t win. If breakfast was just provided for the most deprived kids then you get the well off parents moaning ‘why should I pay and others get it free, I work hard and pay tax’ etc etc, the usual trope, whereas If they provide for all to keep everyone happy, you then get people moaning that it’s wasteful because better off parents can afford it.

It also has other benefits, it is cheap and inclusive so no kids stand out for being ‘poor’, and even if you come from a well off family, that doesn’t necessarily mean you always have time to eat in the mornings so best to try to ensure everybody is set for the day.

Okay they can do some drawing and listen to music.
A quick sweep round a classroom would take about 5 minutes.

@MonetWaterlilies
I'm not sure about the allergy thing. Assume they can have some fruit instead. The bagel breakfast wasn't my post.
What do your school do? @RitaConnors

Absolutely. Another reason, aside from allergies, that the 1 big plate idea just won't work.

I know it sounds lovely, all sitting round eating toast and listening to a story or music, but some of us know the realities of classrooms and it won't work. Or at least not as simply as being suggested.

As per my post, that responsibility obviously lies with your headteacher and SLT.

obviously a regular class teacher will not be tasked with implementing a new government policy school wide. And of course, if they were asked to do so, they would refuse.

*You

Yum could be right except that turning jubsnon offer are zero hours or so n industries that nobody will work in because it’s beneath them and seemingly benefits pay more.

What about children with allergies? One plate wouldn't work unfortunately.

And yet no-one is asking why parents aren't able to feed their own kids breakfast! If the government think that schools can provide a proper breakfast for 60p then why can't parents and why aren't we tackling the root cause?
Obviously I know the answer ie money. But if you've got such a societal problem that so many parents can't feed their kids breakfast then you've got much bigger problems and providing underfunded breakfast clubs, which many schools caht afford to run, is just an ineffective sticking plaster.

So your solution is hoping there will be TAs who don't mind being told their agreed working hours are changing? Hoping that for some earlier hours will be suitable? That's not a realistic solution for every school, nor is it feasible for most.

Last time (in my area) it was sponsored by the supermarkets so the government money went on staff but a lot of it was goodwill from the staff (free labour)

I don't think asking questions about how it will be implemented is moaning.
It's simply asking questions.

And as most changes to policies and initiatives do have a direct affect on teaching staff, be them teachers or TAs, then obviously those staff would be curious as to how they may be affected.