To think that funding free breakfast clubs is wrong-headed?

[WaahWaahWinston]

Government is to fund free breakfast clubs for all primary school children. This doesn't strike me as the best use of money for schools; I imagine there are better things to spend money on that would be of greater educational benefit to children.

It may help a tiny proportion of families but breakfast is probably the easiest and cheapest meal for families to provide to children. (I doubt breakfast clubs will be providing full English or other cooked breakfasts of the sort that one could argue families are hard-pushed to provide.)

So I don't see the compelling need. Why spend money on this of all things, when there must be other improvements that could be funded which would improve education specifically?

But why this scheme? Why a scheme that misses out lots of children (pre primary, secondary school age) and feeds lots who dot need it? Wouldn't a better solution ve upping UC for families ?

Why not?

Well to be fair some prioritise their vape products!

A lot of working parents will drive their kids to school on their long commute so giving them breakfast at school will be helpful. Also frees up money for all parents to spend on other stuff which can help the economy

The idea of free breakfast for all children is obviously a good thing but for me, it just doesn't seem as if it's been thought through logistically wise.
I've worked at a breakfast club and the space we had was only large enough for about 20 children (paying).
If the government are expecting schools to feed every child then where do they propose this happens and who's going to pay for the extra staff that will be needed?
Of course every school is different but at my school we don't have a separate canteen or food hall. We wouldn't be able to use the classrooms as they are being set up for the first session. We couldn't use the school hall because that is being set up for interventions/PE.
It's a good 'idea' but I just can't see that it's going to be practical or workable.

For the reasons I've given. If it's designed to prevent child hunger then it's expensive way of reaching a small proportion of children who need it whilst feeding a lot of others who don't. Are those families who can't afford to give their primary aged child breakfast suddenly going to be able to manage it in secondary school? What happens to the younger children? Or during school holidays? Why not target low income families through the benefit system?

Question for the government I would suggest. It by no means alleviates child food insecurity but it will reduce the stigma of using breakfast clubs in primary schools. My hope is that families that need it will access it. For me it's a start but by no means a fix all.

I'd love to know how this would work in my dd's primary if it was implemented there. We currently pay for wraparound care there at £6.50 per session for breakfast club from 07:30 till 08:45. Places are limited due to space and staffing ratios. The school hall is used for this but it is ran and staffed by an external provider who rent the space from the school. Would they be expected to close to allow the school to use the hall for a free club, leaving the working parents who need the childcare with nothing? Or would they be expected to add the free sessions onto theirs, not only meaning fees would increase for paid attendees to cover costs, but that spaces available to them would reduce to allow room for the free breakfast club?

Genuine question: what stigma? Breakfast club at our local primary is widely used by working parents and takes 90 children a day. There is no stigma, more of a waiting list for places.

What’s wrong with an hour of free childcare. A lot people (especially women), struggle with work when children are in school as it’s not as flexible as childcare. It’s a small % who are earning enough to afford flexible childcare. Breakfast is relatively cheap, gets children to school on time, the children can have a proper breakfast and socialise with their peers in a relaxed way, rather than the rush to get breakfast and out the door in the mornings.

Maybe it’s to enable parents to widen job availability to be able to start work earlier, especially those on minimum wage where it’s not financially viable to pay for breakfast club?

I thought this was more about childcare rather than feeding children? Isn’t the aim eventually for schools to provide free wrap around care both ends of the day in line with private nurseries so parents can work more easily? Most schools do breakfast clubs anyway and the children in our area that are on pupil premium can attend for free so the only thing it is doing in my area is making it cheaper and easier for working parents as well. I have no issue with it, many working parents are struggling to make ends meet and one parent is often left only being able to do a part time job because the school hours don’t aline with most jobs or professions. I think it’s a positive as it helps both working parents and the children that would otherwise not have breakfast at home.

The ones it doesn't help are childminders, private companies and nurseries which offer wraparound care and which are all set to lose their businesses.

Or the schools, which are given insufficient funding and time to make an idea happen which, as I already pointed out, will require lots of extra money and lots of extra staffing, and the surrounding admin.

Or the secondary schools where there is little realistic need for wraparound care, but which are still going to face the same costs.

Or the parents who need help in raising their children properly, and not another excuse to palm that responsibility off on someone else.

The proportion of children in genuine poverty due to a lack of household money is small - a much larger proportion that don't get fed miss out because of poor budgeting decisions or sheer fecklessness, where other help is needed, but that should not be a school's responsibility. This is where the money would be better spent on expanding social services and reinstating Surestart.

I think far too many read too much Daily Mail on here.

I don't think any childcare providers who offer drop offs from 07:00/07:30 will be affected by this. Is working parents still need childcare at that time to enable us to get to work on time so I can't see many if any taking up the offer of a free 30 minutes from 8:20.

@JasperTheDoll
My childminder charges me £5.50 per hour. Take half an hour off that at £2.75. Over a school year of 190 days, that's a loss of income of £522.50 per child. She is in charge of 5 school age children, so could lose £2,612.50.

The school-based provider opens at 7.30am - an hour before children are allowed on site. They charge £7 per child. 20 children attend, so if they lose half an hour per child for the free offer, they lose £3.50 x 190 x 20 = £13,300 a year. That's assuming they believe it is still viable to prepare and set up for a mere half an hour.

As I said above, economics of scale. It makes a difference.

And of course parents will take up an offer of free childcare. They will expect the children to be looked after until free childcare starts.

The school based one will currently be limited on numbers though due to staff. If they choose to offer the free 30 minutes it doesn't mean they can increase numbers from 07:30 so people using earlier drop off providers will still probably choose to use them as they can't suddenly change heir working hours to allow for an 08:20 drop off. Private childcare providers would be well within their rights to say they are unwilling to do the school drop offs for the children in their care earlier than the official school start time.

It's not an hour of free childcare - the proposal is 30 minutes.
The government have high hopes for the scheme, which will be informed by experience of the first 750 schools who start in April to offer the free breakfast clubs.

An aspect for working mothers (or would-be working mothers) is that if your job is supervising the breakfast club, you may require care for dc who don't attend the same school. I am sure this and other snags will be addressed after the initial tranche.

www.gov.uk/government/news/first-schools-confirmed-for-landmark-free-breakfast-clubs

I agree, resinstating sure start and children's centres would be a better first step.

Yes, a childminder could refuse (and deal with the fallout). Incidentally, mine is closing shop soon because government initiatives such as this and the "free" (underfunded) childcare have made her job completely unviable - she is just seeing my child and others in their year through until they have completed Y6.

But the private provider which uses the school hall to provide the current wraparound care from 7.30 does... what exactly? Move to a different room for the half hour? Allow all the children to mingle, but some are paid for and some aren't? Only run the club for the first half an hour?

Or, more likely, close the club completely and therefore leave parents who currently use it for the extra hour before school to scramble for the already scarce childcare places elsewhere?

If you had read my previous posts you would see that I'd already said this was a concern of mine over my current provider as it's an external company that pay to use school facilities. Mine uses the hall and there are no other rooms available for them to use. The club is full and has a waiting list for new children so there would be no room within it for extra children, free or paid.

I am concerned that in this country we’ve ‘taught’ parents that their children are someone else’s responsibility and that if they want to have them and not feed, clothe or teach them anything then that’s their right.

And as someone born to useless, abusive, neglectful parents it makes my blood boil that someone can just produce a human being and not feed it, and the UK’s response will always be: what should schools do about it?

But I think we have a moral duty to protect these kids from their own parents. So I’m in favour of anything which feeds kids whose parents are too fucking crap or selfish to do it. It needs to be funded properly, though, or there’s no point. And I’d be happy for my taxes to go up to pay for it.

@fitzwilliamdarcy there have always been parents who struggle to cope. It isn’t a malaise unique to the uk or of the current times.

Many people who are just about coping but would never let their kids go hungry would also benefit from having one less meal to organise and budget for… and I’m in favour so long as it’s good, healthy food and not sugary cereals or toast made with nutrition-free bread.

And there have always been parents who've prioritised their own desires over their children's needs. Yes, the children need protecting - no doubt about that - but providing free food for children whose parents are able and willing to feed their children isn't the way to go about things.

@MounjaroOnMyMind a lot of struggling parents are struggling because they are working long hours or two jobs or making long expensive commutes to make ends meet but don’t earn enough to cover rent, childcare and other bills… the cost of living is making life extremely hard for many people.