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.

I'm not sure how it will be delivered in schools and would be interested in finding out. I imagine it will differ depending on uptake. It isn't something we need to use as we can afford to feed our kids and dh and I work around each other so aren't both shooting off to work at the same time. We are in Scotland and kids here get free lunch meals at primary school but mine weren't eating it so I make up packed lunches which they seem to enjoy more.

A policy where feeding children is the focus is never something that I could get worked up about. If making it universal helps increase the uptake for children then that is a good thing.

Oh I’m sure that they all have a contract with the local artisan bakery to provide spelt sourdough sprinkled with unicorn tears.

Maybe you should write in? I think you are probably correct to worry that people who work in education and child welfare will not have heard of UPFs or have any understanding of nutrition.

My kids are grown ups now but as a single parent working every hour to support myself and them, I would have found this an absolute bloody godsend.

I agree.

It's not as though 'breakfast clubs' provide a big breakfast, it's usually cereal and toast, maybe a bit of fruit or yogurt.

However, it is enough to start the day and making it free for all means there is no stigma attached.

In Scotland, school meals are free for all pupils for the same reason.

I have no objection to a bit of my tax going towards that. The government always wastes so much, it's nice to see some of it going to the welfare of children.

A lot of parents have a day off in the week, or work shifts and are on late, and of course there are weekends. They can do a hearty breakfast then.

It is the children that matter.

It’ll be the same as it is now in most breakfast clubs. A narrow selection of cheap cereals and white toast with butter or jam. So it’ll be crap. Long term health outcomes will be affected

It eroding family life, children will be spending so much time out of their homes and eating cheap food that long term we will have an exhausted and unhealthy generation who didn’t form the correct attachments at a young age because of all this.

Rubbish. Many families already use breakfast clubs and have perfectly secure attachments.

Cost of means testing would be considerable...and another admin burden on schools.

It will be a bowl of cereal and toast, maybe a yoghurt. It won't be hugely expensive and the take up will hardly be 100%.

Because the children who will go (I include my own in this - they go already- I currently pay), would otherwise be eating more nutritionally sound breakfasts at home on a weekday would they?

Obviously not.

What's wrong with that? If people are capable of work, they should. It's grossly unfair to expect other people who do earn a living and pay into the system to finance people to live off the state.
As I've stated earlier, I don't believe breakfast clubs should be state sponsored, but if a consequence is getting more people into work, well, I could get on board with that.

It eroding family life, children will be spending so much time out of their homes and eating cheap food that long term we will have an exhausted and unhealthy generation who didn’t form the correct attachments at a young age because of all this

what a load of rubbish. Love it when people bandy about psychological terms with no understanding of them.

1. ‘Attachment’ happens well before school age.
2. Leaving the house half hour earlier to have breakfast wouldn’t affect attachment.

Do some actual reading into attachment perhaps. You could start with Wikipedia.

I meant the nursery hours from 9 Months it starts then

It’s not compulsory. Not all kids eat fresh fruit and eggs for breakfast anyway…

I personally don't agree with universal school meals at infants level either, I think the welfare system should be funding better support to families across the school ages to a higher income threshold rather than all youngest getting it for free but families on fairly low incomes not getting help at 8. Nothing wrong with schools allowing early drop off for working families but a £1 per child per day for breakfast is fine apart from those on free school meals.

If you're having kids make sure you can afford to feed them. I understand life styles change but I don't understand ppl who already have kids they can't afford having more kids then crying they don't get enough help. Services are hard to reach for those who really deserve it because there's too many that take the mick.. if we all acted better, not just blaming the government for everything, we'd all be better off.

A couple of mine don’t due to arfid but the others do as that’s what they are offered. These dc will only be offered cereal toast etc they can’t make a healthy choice even if they want to !

The issue is working parents will use it regardless of if they can afford to pay for childcare because it's convenient and free. Non working parents are less likely to access it as they do not need to get their kids to school early. It's more likely the non working parents are struggling financially.

Also who's funding it? If it's just another pressure for school then it's not fair.

Definitely free for fsm and a nominal payment for every one else day £3 per day per child.

These kind of sentiments piss me off, they really do.

Children of the past worked from before school age. A child going to school with their friends to learn, play and socialised is not what you've described FFS.

People have jobs and lives. Childcare settings are usually great and much better than overburdening parents until they're shattered and pissed off.

I think the pandemic showed that when you offer people stuff for free, they will take it!

I completely get that no child should be hungry when trying to learn and yes, if it's universal, people who would otherwise have been too proud to take it will then do so....but on the flip side, my husband and I can afford to pay for breakfast club and would do so willingly. We don't need it and don't see why people like us should get it for free at a large cost to the state.

From a social engineering POV, mixing the two needs together allows for lots of social cohesion and normalisation.

It's harder for Ptolomy to be nasty to Alfie for having the wrong shoes if he has spent all morning playing with him at breakfast school.

If you're Alfie and you come from a household with no culture of working adults, Ptolomy telling you that his mum is off to her job as a CEO of Basket Weaving Corp normalises the idea and benefits of work.

It's great for creating bonds between schools and communities - with the destruction of Sure Start centres and libraries, schools are our front line against disenfranchisement.

Anything that stops school being a happy place for children (hunger, loneliness, overly strict and oppressive rules) increases the overall social exclusion, risking economic inactivity and all the negative social guff that goes with it- drugs, risk of human trafficking, crime. That directly benefits the children of the taxpayers.

Wise elders plant trees the shade of which they'll never know.

It's to get parents in to work rather than getting kids to eat breakfast...

Teachers also don't run the breakfast and after school clubs, ours are run by the dinner ladies so they come in 3 times a day.

If it makes you feel better I still give my DS breakfast before breakfast club so I know he's ate. Breakfast club is also a nice place for the kids to play and mix with older/younger children they wouldn't necessarily speak to on the playground.

Paying teachers to increase the lengh of the school day would be way more expensive then some minimum wage staff and a few rounds of toast.

... then schools would end earlier than than they do, too.

Teachers are contracted for a certain number of directed hours (and contrary to popular belief, they are not paid for 14 weeks of holiday; they get the same amount of paid holidays as everyone else, roughly. They just spread their paycheques out over the 12 months instead of 10, roughly).

If teachers start earlier, than they will end earlier. And schools are cutting support staff like mad unless they HAVE to have them (like 1:1s that are legal entitlements due to EHCPs) because they can't afford them. So there is no one to run these magical clubs at both ends of the day unless provide providers come in, and they're not available at all schools unless they're financially viable.

Salaries already make up about 92% of a school's budget; there is no room to just lengthen the school day as you'd have to increase salaries to cover it. And that's assuming they'd want to come earlier themselves; they often have their own children to sort and get to school.

Breakfast clubs don't feed kids necessarily. It's more of a free childcare thing - when parents need to get to work and drop in their kid earlier. Quite convenient really.

And as for deprived areas only - seems unfair to discriminate childcare and children's opportunities based on the income of parents, isn't it what we are actually fighting against all these years?

Is it ok for the rich to avoid taxes. ? If our country was managed properly we wouldn't have starving children.

There's many reasons poor people kept having children and not all of it is due to a belief someone else will pay for it. And none of it is the children's fault.

It’s a good idea, plenty of issues with implementing it but good in principle. It will certainly be cheap food, how can it not be? Plenty will be wasted. Numbers will have to be capped as there is going to be no way to provide for everyone who wants to attend, in the same way this exists for current school based care. (I was on a waiting list and got a space the following year when had made other arrangements.)

Physical space will be an issue, many primaries don’t have lots of space. Halls are used for sensory circuits, classrooms have staff in, it can be tricky to fit everything in before 8.30.

Great for working families and those who want to get back to work. Yes, there will be those who turn up for a freebie, they will always exist and no, it won’t reach those hard to reach families who aren’t engaging with school for a myriad of reasons.

Personally, I would like to see funds go to early interventions, like Sure Start, but more targeted and support for schools to give children with additional needs the support they need to stay in school and be successful. But there isn’t the money, there aren’t the adults who want to remain long term working in education, so free toast is better than no free toast.