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

Thankfully I'm not on benefits any more and can afford the overpriced gluten free food but back then I had to rely a lot on expired bread given away by charity - gf bread is hard and dry enough as it is, even worse when its stale.

I thought it was only single people under 25 that were affected,?
Surely regardless of age you would have received universal credit ,that made provision for up to two children, and child benefit?

You was under 25 once but did you have rent and bills to pay and kids to get to school? Because I did until recently and you get far less money when you're jobless and under 25 then people realise. Still managed to buy cornflakes for the kids.

Like I said though I'm focusing on the kids who need food by pointing out every family I know with kids who don't get breakfast they aren't getting to school on time for the breakfast club so it's not the solution. Those families need help from social services

Most supermarkets, I'm talking about regular cornflakes not Kellogg's though

Really! Fair enough, I can't remember where we bought our last box but they weren't that cheap.

I was under 25 at one point 🙂

Sometimes there are reasons why providing breakfast at home outside the obvious neglect isn't reliable/feasible/manageable or where a free one in school can be an absolute godsend. And that's why Fed is Best, rather than focusing on attributing blame - focus on the children who need food and how to deliver it, rather than diversions that will be used to justify not doing it.

Asda, Aldi, Sainsbury's and Tesco are all 88p for a box.

I feel you there. My son doesn't have coeliac disease but he has other medical needs and at one point he had to have a vegan, gluten free, low fibre diet which was such a nightmare and incredibly expensive.

Now he is restricted to a low fibre diet which is still a pain but not half as bad as it used to be.

Families use the breakfast club because they go to work. If they can leave the children earlier they can often get home earlier so don't need to spend money on after school care. And I know that the breakfast is pretty basic, my GC have been in Breakfast club for months before the free one started.

I’m coeliac just on a pension now and you have my sympathy.
Everything we have to buy that is gluten free costs twice, sometimes three times as much yet it’s half the size and mostly tastes disgusting.

My GC go to the paid-for Breakfast Club which starts earlier and we're all concerned by how little they are given to eat and the fact that my GS sometimes doesn't eat anything. It's all carbohydrate, cereal and toast, never any protein. Also concerning for us us that now there is a free BC which starts later, effictively my DD is paying a hefty fee for what is really 45 minutes of childcare with an inadequate breakfast.

I don't know where you're shopping if you're managing to get cornflakes for 80p?

That was my way of looking at it but no we weren’t allowed to sweeten it with anything. In fact sugar or honey wasn’t on the list of things we were allowed to order.
Golden syrup was but that’s because it was an ingredient in the flapjacks that the cook made herself but we weren’t allowed to use it for anything else.
My argument was that they would have had sugar at home anyway but they were the rules.

Though I do think its absolutely ridiculous that under 25s get less benefits. Bills and food and rent aren't cheaper when you're 24 and suddenly increase at 25. What a stupid system.

Try being on benefits with coeliac disease, we can't buy 70p cereal or dead cheap loaves of bread.

For breakfast? Really?

OP

There are two issues.

Some children will not have eaten since their school dinner yesterday.

Children are not know for trying new foods at school, as you said a bad breakfast is better than none, but you also have to get it in to the child.

It would be fantastic if we had a dietician in every school and budget for organic fresh food. And of course the staff to cook it, the fuel to cook it and someone to clear up afterwards.

I often went to school hungry, not due to lack of money, we would go abroad 2-3 times a year.

Many times it isn't about poverty. Many middle class families do not feed their children.

I do agree the kids should get help I'm just saying money is very rarely the reason and sadly I doubt the breakfast club idea will help those kids because the people I know who's kids don't have breakfast don't get to school on time anyway let alone earlier for a club. A lot of these kids breakfast relies on the benevolence of teachers making them toast when they do get there. But as there are many teachers on Mumsnet who point out this takes up time meant for teaching.

I think the only solution to help these kids is social services (and I don't necessarily mean taking the kids into foster care straight away but investigating why they don't give their kids breakfast or get to school on time and try and help )

I’m not missing the point at all, some children (including mine two days a week) need to be dropped off at breakfast club so that I can drop the third child off on time at a different school and then get to work on time. On those days I just have to accept they will eat crap for breakfast (fine, it’s just 2 days a week). It’s too early for them to eat at home beforehand. Lots of other working parents are in the same position. And lots are working in the first place because only a few people can support an entire family on one wage nowadays.

others will be low income families using the breakfast club for free food. Don’t these children deserve better?

One of my biggest pet hates is the MN attitude of nobody should get help because I was able to manage and therefore everybody should.

It sounds like you're a good Mum and responsible person and therefore you were able to get by.

Unfortunately there are so so many children who don't have responsible parents who make sure they leave the house with a full tummy. Yes parents should feed their kids, yes cornflakes are cheap but regardless of the reasons why kids aren't getting breakfast the fact remains that lots aren't and you continually pointing out that you had a small amount of benefits because you were under 25 doesn't change that.

Not to turn this thread into a massive sob story but I've been there with most of them things on that list as well. Did you look up how much less under 25s get in benefits than over 25s?
I guess the government assumes no one moves out their parents basement or has children till 25.

Anyway cornflakes are still 70-80p in most supermarkets and most of the people claiming they can't afford to give their kids breakfast are talking out their ass

Somebody in the assessment period for UC so has no income yet has less. Somebody whose employer is messing them around with wages has less. Somebody who has been wrongly refused PIP/DLA has less. Somebody who has been sanctioned has less. Somebody on crap pay with massive childcare fees, travel to work and UC has failed to make the childcare element payment has less. Somebody whose landlord has raised the rent far in excess of the LHA has less. Somebody who is an asylum seekers has far, far less. Somebody who loses their job and is No Recourse to Public Funds has far, far less. Somebody in bed and breakfast accommodation with no cooking facilities for the evening meal or lunches has less.

Being in receipt of benefit was an incredibly secure time for me. Once we got past the three months it took them to realise they hadn't ticked a box on the system to entitle me to anything, then dealing with the entire year's council tax still being due, no FSM entitlement, getting eviction notices, knocking the gas and electricity and trying to get hold of food for the months.

Whose going to pay for that?
And cheap toast and cereal is better than what some kids were getting which was nothing.

I agree OP and I would like to see better school food funded out of general taxation.

Why should children who grow up in poverty be given shit food? They deserve better. Good food and good education, not a fast track to obesity and diabetes.

We have had 30 years of cuts to budgets that's why- the whole system is predicated on lowest cost. It's the same with most public services- the management style has been cuts since my first job in 1984, many professions only offer promotion to those who save the company money-it has been like that for 2 generations. Other countries like Italy haven't had a functioning government since WW2 and yet can still find the money for public services. We were always told the UK has very little corruption-but I have come to the conclusion the opposite is true, and has always been true, otherwise where did the money go?