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

This country needs to have a non scare mongering conversation about ultra processed foods.
Under the NOVA system which is currently used even harvesting of grain counts as a process.
Also while it is lovely that companies such as M+S are releasing their single grain no process cereal you have to recognise why fortified cereal came about. Yes it is more processed but it was addressing people with low incomes who needed vitamins in their food.
UFP is not all chicken nuggets
We need to have a sensible debate on what is UFP and possibly re define it from NOVA.
We do not want the poorer members of our society unable to access nutritional food (even supplemented) because the richer members of our society are stressing about UPF
Do not starve the poor due to a principle

My concern, although I am not a dietitian, is that when we saw a feature on this in the news, the children were being given toast and jam. Wouldn’t that be quickly digested, as it’s high GI and all sugar, causing a sugar rush and then a crash quite quickly mid morning? Cereal and milk aren’t a complete meal either?

I thought it was protein that fills you up? So, wouldn’t the children be better off, being given a balanced meal - like eggs, fruit/veg, baked beans or a lower GI carbohydrate, to keep them going until lunchtime?

The Sure Start Centres I used to go to where all in primary schools with attached preschools catering to a challenging demographic. They were deliberately placed right there so that local parents would go from the start. The whole idea is to develop health and education right from birth (ideally even before that), for those who need it most. That is literally the whole point of it. If you never had a parent who fed you properly or talked or read to you and you do not have that great innate gift of knowing how to parent properly, because you were never parented properly yourself. Of course the main problem these days for most poor people is insecure housing and not actually being able to stay in one place with their kids long term and having a supportive local community.

My most local one was once on the news and they panned around to show the carpark. Full of bmws, mercs. Audis. people, like me, drove to use them. Most of the people I met there were educated / professionals. My neighbour and I used to drive to different ones to do different classes.

There was no stigma. The target market in the surrounding areas didn’t even have curtains open before lunch time.

Just like with providing breakfast, the issue is not a lack of money or a lack of opportunity. It is culture and a lack of parenting skills.

I guess so, because I am not aware of anything replacing them in England on the same scale?

Presumable that is based on nothing replacing surestart centres? Surestart centres were never a thing in Scotland - it was decided to spend the money in other ways directed more to deprived communities. No idea if that was financially more beneficial than surestart centres or not.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates for every £1 spent on Sure Start centres, the financial savings long term were £2.05:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/may/22/sure-start-centres-saved-uk-government-2-for-every-1-spent-study-finds

The mainstream politicians mainly don’t care about ordinary people. They want to shrink the welfare state. It’s all ideological!

Covid proved that young mothers not having access to social groups is detrimental for mother’s and babies’ mental health and development.

Local libraries, playgroups, weighing in clinics, GPs are meant to be open to deal with some of what SureStart did, but can be scattered all over and harder to access. The whole point of SureStart was that is was easier to access and go just there. The organised NCT mum is of course OK to find it all. The teen mum from a deprived background less so.
When I went to SureStart with my older children in London we also got handed books and all sorts of other information, as well as early speech and language advice/weighing in, 1 and 2 year checks. It was a real community hub and meant people from different backgrounds did mix. When I pop into the local library these days (which is lovely actually and we are very lucky, as well as the local playgroups in churches/community centres) there simply are not enough poorer people attending or from immigrant backgrounds. It is very obvious indeed.

I , and the kids, really like porridge which is cheap, easy and good fibre. Love a boiled egg, toast, crumpets, crumpets, cereal, fruit, yoghurt. All relatively cheap and largely what the majority of the country has of a morning on the way out the door.

Its not perfect but few things in life are ideal I’d think it was good enough.

I think some felt stigmatised by using them, such a shame.

My DC are adult but I remember there was a child at their school who didn't get much (if any) food at home. He was always given a quick breakfast and a large lunch at school, though it was long before breakfast clubs and free meals.

Yeah, thanks for clarifying that(!)

Pp has been very judgemental of other people's parenting on this thread. Rightly so in the case of parents who neglect/do not bother to feed their children, obviously, but they appear (to me anyway) unwilling to address the question of whether a defenceless hungry child should be left hungry because their parents are feckless.

Whilst I am actually not thick and am capable of understanding that sometimes parents require breakfast to be 'outsourced' so to speak (work start times clashing with breakfast time etc), what I was trying to point out was that circumstances can look different from the outside looking in and people shouldn't judge when they don't have the full facts. Pp appears to believe every case of child poverty in this country is down to parental fecklessness. That's simply not the case.

Managing and punishing “the feckless poor” is not the job of schools. Its also not just “the poor” who act fecklessly when raising and feeding their DC.

Breakfast clubs started to address the practical problem of kids arriving unfed. That is all.

And in many other areas they were well used which would suggest the successful groups had something to teach those with low take up.

However the reason for the closures was nothing to do with usage or success rates - it was a policy decision under the austerity cuts.

But I thought one of the reasons sure start centres were closed as they were not really being utilised by the people they were aimed at ,you can lead a horse to water etc
Feckless parents are unlikely to access the groups sure Start put on.

This is true. My mum taught in a deprived area and one was opened within her school site.

Despite every incentive/encouragement going, the families whom they most wanted to reach simply weren't interested in using it.

I don't disagree that hungry children for whatever reason need feeding
But I thought one of the reasons sure start centres were closed as they were not really being utilised by the people they were aimed at ,you can lead a horse to water etc
Feckless parents are unlikely to access the groups sure Start put on.

Agree that Sure Start closing was a very poor decision.

Children arriving hungry have always been given food by the school. The government doesn't acknowledge that this has always happened.

We used to have places called, 'Sure start' they were a one stop place for new parents to get help and advice. They should not have been closed.

For me the bottom line is that there are children arriving at school hungry, if there are given food it is easier for them to learn and easier for the teachers to teach.

For me it isn't about parents being feckless, lazy, too busy, whatever children learn better when they are not hungry.

Britain isn't a poor country, free school meals is something it can easily afford if it chose to budget differently. My country has free school meals for all, only just slightly richer per capita than the UK (actually was very surprised by that, I assumed Finland was poorer, I'm sure it always was before, but actually Finland had free school meals for all even when it was very poor, and during the terrible recession of the 90s) and can afford it. Its not just about making sure children from poor families get to eat, its about making sure every child has at least one healthy meal a day, at school where they need to eat to focus in class, and it also helps instil good eating habits as it doesn't allow for fussiness - everyone eats the same and peer pressure helps them eat it even when they don't like it.

Thee pp is taking responsibility as a parent they are PAYING for their child's breakfast.

No lunch is three courses, so they will have say a salad or soup, some kind of meat and veg then yogurt or cheese and a piece of fruit.
We don’t do breakfast as school starts at 8:15 so not necessary for us but I doubt it’s anything fancy or incredibly nutritious to be honest but the children are getting something decent for lunch for sure.

If it's a parental responsibility why are you palming it off on to breakfast club?

I never said anything about 'branded things'.

In terms of a free breakfast, it’s better than nothing as some parents are struggling financially.
The example of a breakfast offering you saw, Is it not better to have a hot drink and some bread than nothing at all ?

Children are in school for 190 out of 365 days of the year (and 38 of those days on average are the half day Fridays)
Lunch which is one meal in those days offered in schools is not causing the obesity problems. Perhaps educating parents on nutrition is the way forward as children are eating the majority of meals at home.

Here in Scotland yes once every 3 weeks pizza is an option one day along with an option of soup and a sandwich or a filled baked potatoe.
But Other days lunch options can include, fish fingers, mince and potatoes, chicken, stories, vegetarian bolognaise, pasta, macaroni cheese, quiche. All served with vegetables.
Along with an option to have home made soup and sandwiches. Every lunch there is a salad bar offering a variety of veg/boiled eggs/ plus fresh fruit and yogurts.

Err Sainsbury's. Ever heard of it?

It's not necessary to buy branded things.

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