Free school breakfast for every child

And if they don't. ??
What then ?
Children should go hungry ?

What next? Schools expected to potty train, teach teeth brushing and how to use a knife and fork. Oh...wait!

Do you really think that the parents who aren't feeding their children are likely to take them extra early to school? If it was really about feeding undernourished children, schools would be providing a nourishing snack later in the morning, not before school starts.

Actually loads didn’t. Just like today. We just didn’t think those kids deserved better. My grandmother was a school guidance counsellor in the 1960s and there were plenty of hungry kids she fed out of her own pay.

No one ever said such a thing. You are just making up a spurious argument.

Ok so you breastfed your kids until they were 10. Then put them onto soya milk and a vegan diet. That is not the demographic that this is aimed at.

I had school milk as a child. Health visitors recommend milk. It is high in vitamins, calcium and iron. Just because you have a thing about cows, it doesn't alter facts. Some children in the uk suffer from rickets. Milk would help to prevent this.

Please enlighten us to what kids should be consuming at breakfast club. I think the variety of opinions on this thread mean that the scheme is doomed to failure.

No. Parents should feed their own children. We did it years ago, rich or poor. 🙄

So what would you like them to eat? Toast and cereal is cheap. And easy to serve.

Schools don’t have the budget to provide catering staff early in the morning.

As it is, a lot of teachers and TAs are unhappy as they will be roped into doing it for free. Schools aren’t going to employ extra staff to cover the breakfast clubs. What about those teachers who have children who will have to get to work even earlier?

Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve always been a stay at home mum. My children, if they want to have breakfast (two have never eaten breakfast, one is an adult now and still doesn’t), don’t want to eat much more than a bowl of cereal.

my 12 year old has to be on the road at 7:30 am to get to school - she says the last thing she would want is anything more than a slice of toast at that time of morning.

It is true - but I personally just need the cheap childcare for them as I need to be at work at 8.30 so no choice

but it’s a few breakfasts of cereal Or toast and jam and juice in the week and she’s still getting a decent dinner in the evening so I don’t worry too much about it 🤷‍♀️

she has a banana or a bit of yogurt on route as well

if this is true it’s appalling.

if the government isn’t able to willing to provide healthy food then it needs to keep out of nutrition entirely.

poor kids.

My daughter is in her mid 20s and even when she was in primary school our school district provided free breakfasts to all students who wished to partake, so it's been in place at least 20 years. The amount it increases our taxes by is minute. The effect it has on a handful of students is enormous. I think it is a great use of resources.

I am merely stating a fact. 'Kids' do not 'need milk'.

As I've said, if a child is starving it is better than nothing.
But to say that kids need to drink something produced by bovines, is madness.

I agree.

I wish there were more posts like this. There are a few in this thread. But they don't outweigh the judgement or lack of understanding sadly.

It’s their parents who are failing.

If you find yourself thinking "I'm not bothered about doing that" or "it seems like a waste of money." Then you actually need to be thinking, "Okay, I'm not the demographic it's being aimed at. I don't need this particular service."

My two children don't need it either, so don't attend. But for those children who do need it, it's such a great service. Anything that can help remove barriers to learning, and help children from disadvantaged backgrounds get a leg up, has to be worth celebrating.

Just because it's not something your children need, doesn't mean that there aren't children out there (and parents) who appreciate it every single day. I've said it time and time again, and will continue saying it until the day I die
CHILDREN CAN'T HELP BEING POOR.
Blame and criticize the parents all you want, but it's NOT the children's fault.

Personally, I think that nation that doesn't love and care for ALL its children, is a failing nation.

I use it 5 days a week anyway paying for it

I pay 3£ to drop off at 745 every day!! Great if it was free obviously

but over all it’s not that much money to me so I’m quite happy to continue paying as well as I can afford it

its awful to think some kids are arriving at school for the day hungry though so I’d welcome it for all so everyone is fed

i doubt it would actually work helping kids from the type of home where the parents don’t get up to take them to school as the kid won’t even make it on time for the breakfast club at 8 - like who is going to make sure the child gets there

I think this is less about financials and more about some parents. I went to a rough school where kids didn’t have breakfast because their parents were still in bed and nothing was in the house. My husband got given a chocolate bar on the way to school. I imagine it’s to combat that sort of thing! As much as I think it’s the parents responsibility, realistically many kids don’t get a breakfast or get an awful one and this helps that, so I support it.

I’m in Scotland and I don’t know if it’s universal or not, but my kids’ primary school always had a free breakfast club. Pre-Covid there was cereal, toast, porridge, sliced melon, berries, bananas etc. After covid it went to just cereal or toast.

The high school has also had free breakfast but it is all provided for free by warbutons. So it’s just things like toast and bagels and stuff, with jams and butter. Staff have to be paid to prepare it in the morning so it’s still costing something I guess, but the high schoolers can just grab a bagel as they walk paste the entrance where it’s all set out like a mini buffet.

It’s popular in both the primary school and for the high school kids, so the food will be used.

I have never heard of a school providing fruit and veggies to kids and I have friends with kids in about 20 different schools across my city. How lovely! I am sure that makes a huge difference to the children and I’d fully support that sort of initiative.

I think it’s horrifying that people want to punish the children for their parents’ life situation. Loads of people end up in bad situation due to bad luck or ill health or lack of education or opportunities. Some are lazy, sure, but that still has nothing to do with the children. Kids are innocents and I will never be sorry to spend my time feeding them. I volunteer at the food bank in my area once a month and it’s terribly, terribly sad.

Our school is a ‘mixed catchment’ so the breakfast club is both sides - children whose parents are off to work as well as children on free school meals who are refugees or foster children or any sort of other situation. They all play together before school and eat some toast and it’s all fine. My kids aren’t too good for a piece of white bread in the mornings and I’m glad that the inclusivity means that no one needs to think about if the kids are there because of logistics or need.

Would love to see them add a piece of fruit at snack time but not judging them for not being able to - we have kids in too small shoes and no winter coat, kids with terrible home lives, kids who don’t speak a word of English and just moved here from a war zone… there are a million priorities and I have no idea how I’d make those decisions if I was the head teacher.

I volunteer on the PTA and our entire ethos is about equity - all our fundraising is for the uniform bank or school supplies or paying for the kids to all go on a trip as so many parents can’t afford the £8 to go to the science centre or whatever. I almost never judge the parents and I absolutely never judge the kids. Am sure they’d rather be in a safe home with lots of food in the cupboards.

This

An increasingly bonkers thread. Let's drag cows into the equation. Bonkers.

I never mentioned cows. Let the middle class fannys drink soya milk for their free breakfast.

My doctor told me, when I was very ill and couldn't eat, to drink milk. He said it contained all the nutrition I needed. Obviously, my doctor didn't know what he was talking about.

I think a lot of schools do fruit snacks, especially for key stage 1.

Every school my three children have been to (my eldest is 23, youngest is 6), and every primary I’ve wprked in have provided fruit/veg snacks.

My youngest child’s school provided apples, bananas, carrots, crackers and cartons of milk. Milk is only for key stage one, but all years get fruit and veg in the classroom.

My 6 year old will not, and has never eaten breakfast, even as a baby. So she has a piece of fruit at break time.

This is why mid morning snack and milk would be a good idea. Snack could be toast or cookie. Kids often don't want early morning food but feel peckish mid morning.

But not sure how it fits with the healthy eating stasi.

I probably wouldn't go for free but a possible small amount of funding would be good. When my Mum was a headteacher she ran a breakfast club for children whose parents needed to drop them off earlier so they could go to work, she provided cereal, milk, fruit and juice but it was all out of her own pocket. She also kept a fully stocked fruit bowl in her classroom for the children who weren't provided with a snack but again she had to pay for it herself. She always said it broke her heart to see the children who turned up to school dirty and hungry, but there was only so much she could do to make sure they had something to eat while in her care.

Life is complex and it’s easy to pass judgement when you don’t know the deeper things going on in any family. If providing a free bagel means a child is starting the day with food in their stomach then great!

I wish some of you could come to the area I live and see how some families survive.

Breakfast table? Some families at our school are in temporary accommodation and don’t even have kitchens.

And also some parents are just shit. The majority of children who go to our school live in a very small area. Lateness and attendance is abysmal, even for the children who live on the same road. Parents drag them in stinking of weed at 10am without the grace to even look embarrassed.

Then there are the parents who were brought up like that themselves, and just think it’s normal to carry it on with their own children.

ETA, I didn’t always live here. I used to live, and work, as a school welfare and attendance officer in a very affluent area of west London. The parents were just as bad there, I was always having to have meetings with one very prominent MP and a famous TV writer about their children’s lateness and poor attendance, they couldn’t get it together either, along with many other very middle class parents. So I’ve seen shit parents at both ends of the spectrum.