Free breakfast clubs for ALL primary school children? Why?

[Safi7]

I’ve been overseas since the election so a bit out of the loop, but is it true that Labour are going to make it standard that all primary schools must now offer free breakfasts to all children, regardless of need?

Fair enough for children from deprived families - but all children?

Where is the money for this coming from?

Are Labour actually saying that in 2024, its now to much to expect parents to actually bother to feed their own children breakfast? This responsibility can just be pushed onto schools instead - as if they haven’t got enough on? Teachers are leaving in droves as it is. Du much is out in them - the jobs is becoming more like social work in too many cases. Who will staff these breakfast clubs and make sure kids are actually eating?

Surely this is just encouraging lazy parenting - ie parents who can well afford cereal / toast / eggs etc it but just won’t bother if their kids can eat at school instead. Plus children will be dumped at school earlier than necessary, just because parents can now get away with it?

Surely it’s better to direct resources where they are actually needed, rather than turn schools into free cafes? Makes no sense.

Also they don’t have capacity for all of the kids in the school and I don’t see how they can magic that up.

They will have to go into classrooms and that means the teachers can't set up for the day as the children will be in each room. It will also require additional staff to ensure that they are supervised in different rooms. Likely as the staff will be doing the doors and breakfast this means teaching staff by default will become free babysitters.

Pupil Premium and FSM are separate things. Targeted interventions are for Pupil Premium children.

Are you sure you're a teacher? You're wrong.

All children in receipt of FSM are also in receipt of Pupil Premium funding.

The children on school dinners at every school I have worked at have paid for the week or are on FSM or UFSM. That means they are entitled to a dinner. This has to be offered to the families as they have paid or in receipt of FSM/UFSM.

Therefore when the permissions go out to parents it should say if your child receives a school lunch please indicate if you require one for this day. School lunches are available to purchase for this day if required.

Some who are FSM accept, some on FSM bring their own. Some on UFSM accept and some on UFSM bring their own. Some on paid accept and some bring their own.

Otherwise the school are taking money for their meal that day and not providing one. My point is that those with the 'brown bags' are not just FSM kids.

Pupil Premium =/= FSM.

"Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of:

• pupils who are recorded as eligible for free school meals, or have been recorded as eligible in the past 6 years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM)
• children previously looked after by a local authority or other state care, including children adopted from state care or equivalent from outside England and Wales."

In my last small class of 22, 9 children were PP, significantly higher than the number in receipt of FSM if we were in line with average across the school.

Yes they are, but not all children in receipt of PP get FSM.

I genuinely cannot believe some of the stuff that I’ve read on this thread.

That if you send your kids to breakfast club you’re neglecting them and social services should take them away

that kids in breakfast clubs will all have attachment issues

That all kids in breakfast club will get fat from being fed toast

That parents who send their kids to breakfast club can’t be bothered feeding them themselves

But still the most batshit part was feeding kids rye bread for breakfast.

Universal free breakfast is an intervention which several charities already run. It’s extremely well evidenced as a measure to increase attendance and concentration during the day. It gives some help to families too. It’s relatively low cost. If it’s universal then uptake is better and administration is simpler. Hopefully it’s one of the many sensible and evidence-based initiatives we can look forward to now that we finally have a functional government.

how will they have the space for all these kids?
breakfast club at our locals have approx 30 kids? at full capacity - how are they going to have all these kids for breakfast club? staff it? etc

@TheAlchemy I honestly think the last gvt have given a lowest common denominator mentality to some. As I said this was the norm in Copenhagen at the school near us- and available to all- it's not compulsory- they used the standard dining hall and had separate helpers in from 8 to 9.30

As I've said, not in any school I've ever taught in.

At our school, all children must bring a packed lunch on a scjool
trip unless they are in receipt of FSM, in which case they will be provided with one. If someone has booked a school meal for that day, they will have their money refunded to their online account as they will not be receiving the school meal.

Its not about offering food. Its the government want parents to be able to work full time hours and do not want them to be prevented by a lack of wraparound childcare.

You would be amazed how many schools actively block providers from running breakfast clubs on site.

The Tories actively pushed policies and rhetoric designed to create division and demonise so-called benefit scroungers.

The cycnical part of me wonders if it was to distract from their own corruption and proclivity for tax avoidance.

This is ridiculous.
In many European countries school starts at 8am or even 7.45am. Children are fine, they just need to go bed earlier if tiredness is a problem.

And they start school at 6 rather than 4, and go home around lunchtime.

Many of them will homeworkers surely?

When were you a SAHM and was it this century!? Because for the vast vast majority of parents today it is literally impossible to run a household on one income.

@TheAlchemy I stopped being a SAHM 10 years ago. I know it is difficult to run a home on one income which is why I said that help would be needed. It isn’t always impossible - I know many who did and still do it - big sacrifices are made though.

You seem to have forgotten that in Y2 (which is the age you think children are noticing which friends get FSM, when most of them barely notice if they've got their shoes on the wrong feet) ALL children are entitled to FSM, so I'm sure that makes for some interesting playground banter...

Joint taxation - a single earner family should be able to use the non earners tax allowance (there is a very watered down version of this but it doesn’t go far enough). Bring back MIRAS. And (somehow) stop the idea that someone being a SAHP is lazy or workshy! No one should feel “less” because they are raising a family.

No, I haven't forgotten at all. I'm sorry you couldn't understand that by referencing the past and not the present, I was talking about the past.

It's not just about parents not being able to afford breakfast. Breakfast club also helps parents who have children in different schools.

This this this.

It's a completely non-workable policy for the simple reason that there is no way it can operate, logistically.

I don't doubt that there are many children who would benefit from a free breakfast club and breakfast clubs, when run properly, are brilliant.

But.

Where are they going to hold these free breakfast clubs if every child in the school is entitled to go?
Who is going to organise and run them?
How is it going to work on a day to day basis?

It hasn't been thought through.

Never mind where the kids are going to eat these wonderful school breakfasts, apart from anything else, it is really hard to recruit staff to run wraparound care facilities. The school I work in has been trying to recruit breakfast club staff this year and received a grand total of 0 applications. Zero. None.

Similar when they tried to recruit for after-school club.

I've said it before but for what it's worth I'll say it again: everyone wants wraparound care, no-one wants to work in wraparound care. Because the hours are antisocial, the money is rubbish, the kids very often badly behaved and the parents rude and entitled.

I will be amazed if this grand plan actually ends up happening.

Way before my time at this library, he had hidden - as he wanted to stay and read. Of course all the staff left and licked up. As soon as he moved the alarms were triggered. Fortunately this was jyst a few minutes at mist so the staff were still outside the building and able to rescue him.
He wasn’t popular for quite a while but he still came and read every day

Ive worked on benefits in the past and watched those without give to those with less, tucking a £10 note in a pocket…. Insisting they take it as there need is greater

there is a lot of ignorance about poverty