Free school breakfast for every child

From first hand observation - kids would go hungry if the expected handout from the local charity not received. BUT parents smoke and have a full Sky subscription and haven’t worked for years.
Tell me that’s right.

I think that providing a healthy breakfast and lunch for every school child is a great way to spend public money. My kids get good breakfasts and packed lunches but so many don’t. It’s also a really good social learning experience eating together. Having children brush their teeth after a meal at school would also be a positive thing. But we all know public money is wasted by our governments and often not funnelled into the right resources.

This. How many times do taxpayers have to feed a child?

Anyone who can afford to smoke doesn't need state handouts!

£2 is ok, and excellent if it starts at 8.00,
I'm South Lanarkshire its free toast and water but only from 8.40.

£10 week would be great if it meant I could start work earlier and in turn finish earlier

Toast and water sounds like something out of Oliver Twist.

How does this fit in with the government's healthy eating plan? Doesn't sound very nutritious to me.

Our local schools had the lunchbox stasi. If food wasnt nutritious it was confiscated and they had to do without. No white bread. No crisps. No treats. Croissants wouldn't be allowed either.

Yet, school meals often included pizza.

Mine had cooked breakfast at home in winter. They also expected something warm for lunch. At one stage I tried sending tomato soup in a flask to school. It wasnt very successful. One mother tried sending a warm pasty for lunch. That was frowned on too.

Honest its Toast to Go, is the service they offer. Which you'll realise it's toast the kids take outside into the playground.
Government requirements don't enter the equation

Pre covid they did a proper breakfast club, but that never resumed, social distancing and budget it restarted as Toast to Go

Billions for illegals and Ukraine is not a good use of funding, second homes with furniture for MPs is not a good use of funding, but breakfasts for everyone is a wonderful idea, it is a great bonding experience - children would be breaking bread together, and if teachers or classroom assistants organise it wonderfully - like mixing kids every morning, not allowing them to sit together in their friendship groups, but really mixing - this is wonderful!

Yes lots of money is being spent needlessly.

I'd rather see money going to schools for stuff than into bags for every child.
What teacher wants 25 identical P1 bags for kids that can hardly read their name? Lots of fun figuring out who's is who's on a daily basis. Most parents can afford a bag for their kid, and most kids want a bag of their choosing, not a government issue number.

mixing kids every morning, not allowing them to sit together in their friendship groups, but really mixing this would be awful! Part of navigating school is avoiding the kids who are unkind, kids shouldn't be forced to mix if they don't want to, it's not speed dating.

Is this happening anytime soon? Currently paying £8 a day for breakfast club.

We have been trialling it in my school where I work. Children can come free from 8.30am. If it's before then think it's about £2.50 or something per session.

Could you, on the PTA, suggest a fruit / vegi snack?

It might not cost as much as you think or anything at all. Large companies often have charitable trusts.

Supermarkets often have excess stock. It might be worth asking whether they would supply fruit / veg, in exchange you give them a bit of free advertising as in "Daily fruit supplied by X supermarket"

If it were me I would start with the Co op.

As well as providing nutrition you are providing a service to those who have come to the UK from places were the food available is very different. People who cannot afford to buy some fruit, just to try. A child coming home and saying they had a pear, or some berries means the parent knows their child will eat it.

www.coopfoundation.org.uk/

@HollyhocksandPeons There are only 635 MPs and yes they do need help with a second home on their relatively low salaries that are not enough for living in London and their constituencies! It’s hardly the same as free breakfast for dc! Parents do need to take responsibility for dc. When we hear about all these issues with feeding dc, what are parents prioritising? Phone ? Tv satellite ? It’s easy to rock up and say you don’t have money with another dc on the way. No one ever looks at where their money is being spent. Ever. Whets the child allowance used for? Could be spent on food. Or clothes but it’s easier to get free food and hand outs. No one starved in the uk before food banks.

Huh? Of course people starved. A lack of able bodied soldiers available from the working class is one of the many reasons the UK looked at widening the welfare policies. Plenty starved in the workhouses too.

Obviously some parents are useless but I still have no idea why the children should pay. Creating a whole new generation of poorly educated people with vitamin deficiencies doesn’t help anyone.

@PurpleThistle7 People did NOT starve pre food banks. Yes, pre First World War but that’s well over a century ago and no benefits! I’m talking about the last 25/30 years and we do not have starving dc. They now get dc benefits for all dc so spend it on food!

Isn't that the parents job?

In an ideal world yes. But we don’t live in an ideal world so if something simple like offering a universal free slice of toast means no child is starting the day hungry then brilliant.

If it means the mum who would have otherwise gone hungry can then go home and have a slice of toast herself even better!

Do you remember the miner's strike? I know it is fictional but the scene in 'boys from the blackstuff' when the dad eats the bread that mum was saving for the kid's breakfast?

Maybe people were not starving to death but people were and still are hungry.

All it’s doing is fostering feckless parenting.

Couple of questions people should ask themselves.

1. Lots of comments about feckless parents etc. and whilst I agree - why should the child be punished for that? It’s not their fault.

2. Would you rather your own child was taught in a class with 25-30 other children who weren't hungry? Or in a class where some of the children have eaten, and are being disruptive as a result? Which environment do you think is better for the other children in that classroom?

Interesting. I thought the miners had strike pay from the union during the miners strike. The NUM is/was one of the richest unions in the country. They owned properties and works of art. They had a huge pension fund.
Arthur Scargill did very nicely, than you.

Sheffield also suffered due to the closure of the steel works. As shown in the fictional The Full Monty. I think money would be better spent trying to improve deprived areas, Middlesborough is a case in point.

The miners strike is 40 years ago. And not really relevant to benefits or food banks.

Thatcher was out to break the unions. And actually i think that is also what selling council houses was really about.
Councils couldn't evict families if rent wasn't paid. Mortgage companies wouldn't have the same moral obligations.
Long strike = no money to pay mortgages. Nobody would put their house at risk that way.

Just to put this into perspective for those citing fecklessness / reliance on benefits as reasons parents use breakfast clubs: after my separation, I was a lone parent working full time and paying for wraparound care 8 - 5.45 with zero financial contribution from my ex and no family support. Earned too much to get any benefits; didn't earn enough for our food to come anywhere but from the food bank / community pantry.

My kid was 6/7. Exhausted from the long days and traumatised by what they'd been through. When you are budgeting money to the penny and time to the second, having breakfast provided so that the morning can be slightly less chaotic and you know your child has the fuel they need to learn is a huge thing.

The big problem is it’s not always appropriate/acceptable for children to be in breakfast clubs. I had to pull both my children from wraparound care, despite really needing it, because they were being “watched” by a bunch of women who were only there for certain children they knew or were related to, and left my children to be physically assaulted. This happened so often I just gave up on using wraparound care for my children, meaning we can’t access their “free breakfast” anyway, despite our need of it. If they cannot be trusted to care for my children and my children come home covered in bruises, marks; clear shoe print one time, then our workplaces had to be informed and we had to make adjustments (I took a pay cut) so they didn’t have to go.