To think that free breakfast at school is a bad idea due to the quality?

Yup. Cereals and toast - the school meals are shit too

I wish DD's school lunches looked like that! On a 3 week rotation it's potatoes 12 times, most of which are chips by another name (chips, fries, potato balls, wedges) or roasts. One lot of mash. One day a week they have pasta!

Pizza, hot dogs, burgers, sausages, quorn dippers, veggie "sausage roll", fish fingers and chips every Friday, roast once a week...

Apparently they're all nutritionally balanced but it's all pretty beige and unimaginative.

DD has packed lunches!

After school club do white toast and marg every day. Or sometimes a packet of crisps if they're playing outside in the summer.

I whole heartedly agree that feeding kids is the most important thing but with our school menu example I can also understand concerns about the quality of what will be served.

Is it still a cheap option if you buy enough for 200 kids to eat it a day (1000 servings per week) and only 10 kids per day eat it?

Works out at considerably more than 89p per 25 servings.

I agree the families of teachers suffer as a result of putting someone else's children first. I am out. Notice handed in. Nothing to go to but absolutely am I buggery being told I am to work more hours than 100 a week or be told I am failing the children because I didn't spend £500 of my own money on resources all while my body is failing through stress.

Is anyone else just really craving jam on toast right now with loads of butter 😋

@MrsSkylerWhite I have said in previous posts that some food in a hungry tummy is better than nothing, but cheap, nutritious food is available and we shouldn’t automatically resort to food with no nutrition.

There are plenty of breads available that don’t contain loads of extra ingredients. Part bake baguettes and pitta bread are really good options too, but these aren’t what is being offered.

Porridge, homework, longer school day and having to get up earlier i bet the teens love that

@CrispEatingExpert

It may be nutritionally sound but when the school doesn’t have a kitchen to prepare it, or keep it warm then it’s a moot point. When a toaster is all they have as well as access to a fridge then options are more limited.

My child's secondary school offers porridge to encourage pupils to come in early for pre-school homework club. Brilliant idea and I'm grateful to them for their efforts.

Yes. Can only speak personally. Our kids liked it and our grandchild does, too. With a bit of honey.

Lidl's Classic Baguette generally consists of wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, and wheat gluten.

There you go, 5 ingredients, if water counts. It’s possible on a budget.

its the extra time we give and the penalties we get to do it. I’ve been late picking up my DC to attend meetings, given up evenings and weekends to complete paperwork to support getting extra support for parents, sometimes I’ve had it thrown back in my face too with next to no thanks for it.
My own DC have SEND issues and I’m eternally grateful for any support! I know the school pays out of their budget to support on top the the funding they receive. Many schools are running on a deficit. And we are getting a pay rise that is partly being funded by schools. I’d willingly forgo this if I could. I didn’t get into the job for the peanuts we get paid for the multiple jobs we have to do as well as actually teach!

Porridge is really cheap - 89p for 25 servings. Made with milk, it contains fibre, protein, b vitamins and other minerals. It’s good for heart health, gut health and slow release energy.

Top with some fruit and it’s a really healthy breakfast and completely UPF free. A much, much better way to start the day than what a lot of schools offer.

There is a significant issue in that the role of schools is to educate, not to provide social provision for the deprived. That needs to be addressed separately, even if school.premises are concerned. The same goes for CAMHS services/MH, particularly in secondary schools. The lines are being blurred and it is unacceptable. Children with MH issues and their families should retain the right for clinical care to be provided through clinical facilities and to retain Confidentiality if required.

My DC attended a leafy cofe, top of the tables primary in the noughties. The HT grasped every blairite initiative going, including deciding to teach the DC table manners. The only problem was they were misinterpreted and the notion of the knife and fork crossing the plate to sit together at the end of the meal was interpreted and sent home in pictorial form with the knife and fork crossed on the plate at right angles. One couldn't have made it up. The poor woman had missed the fact that 70% of the children had professional parents.

So no breakfast at all is better?

Calories are what matter, with very limited resources, when a child is hungry.

And if kids won't eat it then it's a waste of effort.

This with bells on. Schools are vilified but do more than other services and go above and beyond - even going without themselves as staff to make sure the children have.

I can tell you now from experience working in a deprived primary school. They only give them toasted white bagels with cheap margarine. The children could eat as much as they liked but there was no fruit. The fruit that they were given was donated from a farm which was on the turn. Kids were still hungry. That was every day.
It's very commendable of the government to say they will give free breakfast but the quality does matter.
What about giving the kids porridge and if a local farm wants to donate they can top it up on the porridge. That's more nourishing for the children

Schools have no money. The funding isn’t enough. They’re doing the best they can to provide food that children will eat. I’m not sure why so many people seem so obsessed with porridge.

Well yeah it is similar to that if you work in a school! We're not far off for staff at the moment!

Please feel free to donate enough healthy cereal to your local school for every single child for the full academic year.

My school is from a deprived area and we still manage it. Breakfast club has been free for a very long time, not just since the government introduced it. Everything is healthy, wholemeal toast, fortified cereals. Special treats they may get Jam, or pancakes.

We do what we can with next to no budget.

The quality of school meals in my school is actually ok. Many staff actually have one.

Im not against the principle of providing breakfast either and I think it’s amazing. But schools are now providing free breakfast, teeth cleaning, free school meals for all for reception and ks1 children. Foodbanks, uniform banks, lifts to and from school for children. Many staff pay out of their own pockets for children and parents! I have in the past purchased a small inexpensive Christmas present for some of my pupils and provided some of my DCs clothing for parents in need. Yet we constantly get torn to shreds over all sorts, holiday fines, safeguarding issues in the mainstream media! Hardly anyone looks at the positive things we do, that we didn’t get into the job to do, but do willingly! That’s without being the ears for several parents who are struggling on a day to day basis. I do love my job but it’s certainly not what it was when I started teaching 20 years ago :(

In moderation, yes it’s fine. But we’re not talking about moderation. We’re talking about kids eating it every day for breakfast.

Jam generally has more sugar than fruit. It usually contains added gelling agents and other chemicals that are doing us more harm than good and has no nutritional value at all.

Add a scraping of spread that has a closer resemblance to plastic than butter and some cheap white bread (I’ve just googled Sainsbury’s own white sliced and it contains 15 ingredients that I can barely say, when bread should be made of just 4), and we’re filling our kids with chemicals and no nutrition to feed their growing bodies and brains.

It really, really is not fine. And it’s not high in fruit, especially not the very cheap stuff served at school.

If we take your argument to the next stage, it comes pretty close to bringing back workhouses.