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.

Like free school meals for all primary aged children in Scotland, free breakfast club for all children will definitely be worth it. Children focus better with food in their stomach before the school day. Parents often drop their DC off at breakfast club locally at DC's school and those on low income use it too for their DC.

It can only be seen as a positive move. Cuts out admin costs by not means testing it.

Educate these kids on full tums.

It’s the ‘may want to’ I struggle with. It’s either genuinely required or not.

Absolutely right. It is very depressing that some posters are parent-bashing and missing the point: children need to be fed. Feed them, irrespective of family finances. Don’t means test.
While people are arguing the toss like Victorians and their view of ‘the deserving poor’ children go hungry. Feed them all.
Add 1% ( please understand I haven’t done the maths! 😀) to all NI contributions to be ring fenced for HEFC ( healthy eating for children) and redirected to all state schools. Or a flat payment of 25p a week from all tax payers ( again, no maths ).
I have felt like this my whole working life ( teaching).
I have known teachers, including myself, who have bought food from their own pockets to feed children.
sorry for rambling Vettrianofan !!😊

Thanks @Ilovecleaning 😊 yes, many working parents also have no choice but to drop off their DC at school sharp 8.30am for breakfast club because they've no time to do breakfast. Also there's a social element to this too. Mine do not attend as I am always around, but that doesn't mean I don't agree with it for others out there who rely on this service. I am all for this. We all want our children to succeed and others children too. It's in all our interests.

Thank you 🌺

Well said!

Listen to what you’re saying. A drop off at 8.30 gives plenty time for breakfast.

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

Did you know that parents are able to anticipate these transitions and prepare children for them?
My DD is in Y5 and has been walking herself to school since halfway through the year. OK, it's only 5 minutes, but we worked out she'd walked 90km this term.
She gets up, gets dressed, brushes her teeth, gets her bag ready, takes a medication, and heads out, appropriately dressed for the weather.
Our front door slams shut (on purpose, we were due to change the front door lock but decided two teenagers forgetting to lock it was a risk) and we say goodbye and do a final check before she goes out but she is the one who suffers if she doesn't take her coat or her water bottle.
Over the summer she has breakfast at home and she gets herself up and sorts that, makes her own packed lunch for holiday club. Today she's coming to a club near my work but next week's club is near home and she has permission to walk.
When she starts secondary she'll be getting the bus (it's a school service so nobody getting off on the way to school, and nobody getting on on the way to home, in fact she gets on at the first stop so that is simpler for her). The first week we'll probably walk to the bus stop with her and meet her there.

Occasionally she comes home 5 minutes before us (she doesn't really like being home on her own for longer than that, which is fine) and lets herself in. We now have a Blink doorbell so we can check she's OK, and as DH did one day recently, chat to her through the doorbell!

Absolutely! And means testing sometimes excludes those who need it the most, the parents both working on low wages, just above UC threshold. And it will also appeal to and help middle income earners, who then will hopefully be happier to pay for it as it helps them too.
We don't necessarily need a breakfast club, but I think it would hugely helpful from a social/mental health perspective. My oldest struggled in year 3 as it was straight in, heads down, lesson after lesson with no time to talk to her friends. There was inevitably some talking during lessons, which disrupted the learning, understandaby frustrated the teachers. We couod pay for it but most of her friends couodnt afford it and she would only want to go if her mates were there. It's also a time for staff to interact with children on a less formal basis and establish who might be struggling, have issues at home etc, build trust and confidence. I think it couod be hugely positive, but apart from the manifesto, I haven't heard anymore about it?

I just hope that the organisers think about nutrition. My GC have wholewheat chocolate cereal with me, plus toast and egg if they fancy it. I'd be disappointed if they chose to go to Breakfast Club and were just given a bowl of some random rubbish cereal. Also if they were all too busy playing to actually bother to eat anything.
It isn't just the traditional poor sector of society who find it hard to afford to buy decent food at the moment, many people struggle now, even those who appear to be earning a decent salary. Anything that improves childrens' nutrition is a good thing. So if we're paying for Breakfast Club for children who don't need to be there that's fine by me.
However, as other posters have said, it is often childcare at the end of the school day which is more of a problem, especially for single parents with full-time jobs. Maybe afterschool care with real food would be more useful for many.

@ExpatAl look at it this way- uk offers free local bus and train passes to pensioners. Do all need it or use it- nope , but some do- and it's there as an option. Is it totally necessary- not in many cases - no.

I don't think I have ever used my bus pass. Plenty of pensioners do though, I've seen them at bus stops.

The free breakfasts for primary school children will be cereal, toast and maybe a yogurt or a bit of fruit, with some kind of drink. I don't think we can expect anything more elaborate than that but it will perk them up and keep them going until lunch time.

There’s a free breakfast club at one of the primaries in the trust I work in - each child gets half a bagel. Not toasted, no toppings. The bagels were provided under a scheme where they are delivered frozen, left to defrost overnight and handed to the children (they came pre cut). School kitchens can’t be used because the cooks start lunch prep at 8am.

Anc I think chocolate wholewheat or not is rubbish. We all have different ideas of what good nutrition is. It is meant surely for those who cannot so you should not avail of it. So worry not.

Surely more useful is earlier school
opening time and after school care.

LadyDanburyCane: "There’s a free breakfast club at one of the primaries in the trust I work in - each child gets half a bagel. Not toasted, no toppings. The bagels were provided under a scheme where they are delivered frozen, left to defrost overnight and handed to the children (they came pre cut). School kitchens can’t be used because the cooks start lunch prep at 8am."

That is just taking the piss, half a bagel is practically nothing. You don't need a school kitchen to make a bit of toast, just a big toaster, and cereal needs only fresh milk. I don't know about the washing up but there must be some way it can be done

I don’t think it’s the same as it doesn’t take up budget. But wow, lots of entitled parents not understanding parenting does take effort.

Obviously schools and family circumstances vary. Breakfast club at the primary we used started at 7.30. As a family we only managed this by splitting the drop off and pick up between both parents. First parent is out the house 6.30, second 7.30, drop off and straight on to work. Secondary is strictly no kids on site before 8.15 and then only in the library on a restricted number of library passes.

As a working parent I would worry that universal free breakfast club undermines the childminders/private nurseries/3rd party providers. They may close if they are no longer viable. Not an immediate issue if the school provision matches in terms of times of opening though there is no guarantee of that - it may be a half hour as opposed to the 75 minutes we paid for. Longer term, there may be an issue if the government policy on this changes and the money is withdrawn.

anyhow, the point isn’t whether a year 6/7 can ‘put themselves a bowl of cereal’, it’s whether their parent can afford to buy said cereal. If they can’t in year 6, what’s so different in year 7? Teenagers eat like horses plus the food seems more expensive at lunch time too. That FSM allowance isn’t going to stretch far at secondary. I have nothing against feeding children but this seems an odd choice when the universal benefit of fuel payments for the elderly is being withdrawn and tax increases are on the way.

How can we all ‘have different ideas of what good nutrition is’ when extensive research has clearly shown for many, many years what constitutes good nutrition?

@LBFseBrom a medium primary would have what, 210 pupils. That’s some big toaster on the go! Sounds like a SATs question in the making; ‘if breakfast club is 30 minutes, there are 7 year groups of 30 children, each child eats an average of 1.5 slices, there are 7’toasters that take 8 slices and take 1.5 minutes to toast, how many children can be fed at breakfast club?’ Plus you need a good safe prep area away from where the kids need to work/do PE first lesson of the day. Primary schools aren’t know for an excess of space.

A bagel without topping? What is that! Utterly cynical box ticking.

I was being diplomatic ish

Ok 👍😊

I agree it’s treating kids like they don’t matter. It’s only one up from throwing them a bone. I’d be furious.

You have a point. I didn't think there would be so many children at a breakfast club, most wouldn't need it, and they do serve toast in that setting in some schools.

Half a bagel is ridiculous. Bread and jam, or cheese, wouldn't need any cooking, neither would cereal or yogurt.