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.

Suddenly just after their 11th birthday they are meant to be ok to get themselves breakfast, lock the house up, get to the bus stop and get to school

Most secondary school kids (and year 6s) do get themselves to and from school around here, yes.

Can’t comment n the amount of breakfast prep they all do, but I’d expect the average 11 year old to be able to pour themselves a bowl of cereal.

Secondary schools also start earlier around here (8:30 vs 9am for primary) and the library/playground is open, and pre-school clubs are running. So if they really aren’t capable of getting themselves out of the house their parents can get them ready for school then make them sit in the school library for 30 mins - you can’t do that with a four year old.

I agree with everything you said but you won’t solve this problem at a free breakfast club.

these kids still need to eat and it’s better than a packet of crisps or sweets. Or a sunny delight. I’ve seen them all.

Yes, we all get up at 6. No it’s not nice in winter when the bed is so warm.
Some require it for genuine reasons and should get a lot of help but the rest, absolutely not. Lazy parents need to meet their responsibilities.

Surely the same should apply to pensionsers, though. Like my inlaws, who have a couple of million in the bank yet are delighted annually to get the winter fuel allowance they absolutely do not need.

Seems to me Labour would do better to give serious attention to rent. Buying to rent should be outlawed and all rentals should be registered and kept at at cap. 2 bedrooms this cap and so on. If housing was realistic price for region and salaries it would ease a lot of problems. My SIL & BIL own their house and rent out 2 properties. Their two dc go to private school so guess what they did to the rent. This should be illegal.

Don’t be silly with comments like ‘Let’s turn all state primaries into gourmet… restaurants.’ I’m not going to explain because you have used ridiculous exaggeration to make your point which certainly doesn’t convince me to consider what you’ve said.

I think you are one tough woman, Balustrade. It must have been hard, I hope it has paid off and things are better now.

Expata, I would have found it nigh on impossible to get up, or get child up, at 6am. 7am was bad enough I am in awe of you :-) ! We always looked forward to a good lie in at weekends. Now I am 74 I wake up very early and often wake in the night, it is a real pain. I like my bed.

I don't think parents are lazy who take their child to breakfast club, it is a necessity for many who have to go to work early. A lot of people, including children, can't eat first thing in the morning anyway, I never could. By the time I got to school, or, later, work, I was hungry. I'm happy for a bit of my tax to go towards that, I doubt I will notice it, frankly. Who does know how their taxes are spent? The government stockpiles money in different boxes when people and services are in need. This is a good move in my opinion.

This isn't going to happen. The club will be run by TAs or lunchtime supervisors, not qualified teachers, so there won't be announcements made. Events and school trips are communicated to parents (not just children) via email and letters- everyone who has worked with Primary School children knows that sending messages via them is as useful as telling the school budgerigar to spread the news.

As for practising skills, it's hard to see how this would work with a whole age range of 4-11 at the same time, and I think it's highly unlikely that children who have recently woken up and are busy eating breakfast would react positively to being asked to recite times tables, or that TAs would be happy to do that. You can't control when and how much children practise things like that though. Some have extra tuition. Some will log in to Times Tables Rockstars or similar apps every single day and spend ages on there, others cba. I once saw a mother forcing her child to answer times tables questions whilst waiting to see a doctor in A & E, which was quite disturbing. It's not a competition though, and if some children are doing better in one area that doesn't mean that another child is no longer doing well.

This is so true.

Well, enjoy your fried bacon every morning as you rustle up your humblebrag breakfast a la Gordon Ramsey. And for someone so knowledgeable, bacon is carcinogenic, by the way!

Yep. Free school breakfast is the thing that makes so liitle sense we should discuss it on SM.

People will get her up about the most ridiculous things

I read in one of the replies that 30% of children live in poverty. How do you calculate that? Is it based on an international benchmark, or 30% are below the national average family income? Or some other basis? Personally I don't believe 30% figure, but it depends on the criteria. Remember Rishi didn't have SkyTV is that a measure of poverty?

This is tricky and complex, by making this available to all, it de-stigmatises free meals, but encourages lazy parenting, but enables parents to work, but makes for a long day for children, and parents unavailable for their kids, is wasted on those that dont need free meals, but gets children starting the day in the right frame of mind and on time, encourages nanny state, supports the most vulnerable, spreads the rush hour traffic. Jeeze too many factors.

WTF are you talking about? Did you read the posts?I didn’t mention bloody Gordon Ramsay or bacon or ‘humble brag’ breakfasts. Neither did I say I was knowledgeable but I do know bacon is carcinogenic.
Go back and read the posts.

If children won’t or don’t want to eat breakfast they can take it with them and eat it at break. It is still not the states responsibility to fill in for slack parents. Those who need it should get far more than they do.

Grilled bacon 😊
Of course some parents have it extremely tough. It has to be very tough to genuinely not be able to give your child a slice of bread and something to put on it. These people should get considerably more.

You're just embarrassing yourself now.

As I have repeatedly stated, I'm in Wales. Our education system is devolved and things are different here. You seem very fixated on the fact that I'm lying about the fact that when I was teaching primary, all meals weren't free. If you actually read my posts, you'll notice that I haven't taught primary in a few years, because I'm now a lecturer. So again, embarrassing yourself, especially as there's no logical reason to lie.

Just because the school you are in uses an online booking system doesn't mean they all do. Only one school I've ever taught in did. The others were small, rural village schools and took money weekly in cash. I'm sorry that you can't understand that not all schools are the same. It's a simple concept.

I'll do as I please ☺

What is the area you are vastly experienced in? Child poverty? Deprivation in the UK? Social exclusion? The impact of poverty on attainment?

So what you're saying is, you'd rather a child living in deprivation ate nothing at all for breakfast, and remained hungry until lunchtime, than eat some white toast or cereal? Why is that?

I haven't read all the posts, so apologies if this has already been shared, but I found this link helpful in looking at the reasoning behind. Is an interesting read.
I do agree with it that after school childcare would probably be more helpful for working parents. We manage the 8.30 drop off by staggering our start times on different days. But finish time of 3pm is much harder to work around.

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/free-breakfast-clubs-schools-what-labours-plans-would-mean-pupils-and-families

It's interesting that no one is applying this theory to the pensioners' winter fuel payment, isn't it?

Yes I agree entirely they have no power over their situation and must be looked after. The breakfast club is little more than a panacea. There needs to be far more nutrition education and life skills at school. And support in community. I realise many parents had little parenting themselves. So little funding has been given to education and child support it’s threadbare. A national disgrace.

Thank you, @LBFseBrom, It did eventually pay off, and I no longer have to pay £6 for breakfast club everyday!

The fact that some other posters think people who need to get up early should simply not be educated or employed, so that they can feed children at bacon sandwiches and eggs at home makes me laugh.

Absolutely. Labour seem determined to put pensioners into more poverty with changes to fuel allowances, taxes on pensions etc. Arguably they are a vunerable group than children. Children usually have their parents to support and advocate for them, schools are a safety net as have regular contact and able to pick up on concerns. Many pensioners are isolated, living alone, no one to check up on them regularly. Not that it's a competition about whose worse off, we should be supporting all vunerable people in our society, but pensioners do seem to be getting a raw deal from this government already

@ExpatAl I'm pretty sure this will be incoming too - give it chance!

The breakfast club thing is I think in response to the 2 cap Universal credit child element- many people felt it better to target direct action to children rather than just extra cash to the parent- this is an easy one to do at not a massive cost and if parents are genuinely struggling they should use it- it also helps many working parents at all income levels who don't work from home and 'may' want to use it -

Some things are means tested, some things aren't. 1/4 small children aren't worth £1m...

@JustAnotherDadOf2 there isn't a single, concrete definition of relative poverty, but one often used is based on disposable income and would refer to a household with income below 60% of the median income that year.

Absolute poverty would be when a household's income is not enough to meet even basic living standards. There is a lot of information on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website, amongst others