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?

People need phones because everything is done via internet these days including messaging from schools. If parents started ditching their phones schools would have to go back to the old ways of contacting parents like letters.
And if a parent had to be contacted about a sick child but was working in a low paid job and had no phone do you think employers would be happy to keep taking these calls. "hello its school here. Can you tell Mrs Smith that Timmy is ill and she needs to come pick him up" ad infinitum.
If you want ppl to start ditching their phones then we need to stop doing eveything via internet and start doing everything by letter again.

This

It is really unfortunate we have to resort to feeding children breakfast at school as it enables feckless parents.

Having children is not a coat free decision but id we have the state again and again stepping in when parents forgo their parental responsibility we only go in one direction.

I think at most other points in history, though (and perhaps in other countries besides the UK), it wouldn’t be socially acceptable to say “oh but life is so stressful that we should be helping out parents by taking away the job of feeding their kids so that they’ve got less to do”.

I keep animals and if I don’t feed them, it’s considered abuse and the animal gets removed from my care. And that’s an animal! With human beings, if their caregivers don’t feed them we go “oh but it’s very stressful and sometimes they can’t cope, we mustn’t shame them, the government needs to step in instead”.

That’s wild to me, and kind of what I mean when I say that we’ve sent a message to parents about who is responsible.

I accept that public money needs to be spent on kids who aren’t getting fed by their parents, but I’m a bit boggled at the suggestion that it should be spent on feeding kids who would get fed but whose parents would prefer that that job was ticked off the to do list by someone else.

Society benefits from children who can concentrate in class and are well nourished. A free breakfast seems like a small investment with very good returns… in the moment for all the children being educated together and in the long term benefits of a better educated workforce, improved health and reduced stress on health services.

There are plenty of other ways that society will inflict inequality on children from the get-go.

I know that. I was teaching for decades and saw it first hand. However there are some parents who don't put their children first. It's obviously a priority to protect them. I just know that many, many parents can afford to and do give their children breakfast and it doesn't seem a good use of money for the government to be feeding them.

I disagree. As others have mentioned, admin wise it's clear and as such is probably no more expensive as targeted. Hungry kids don't learn, so educationally for them it matters but also for the class for eg if 4 children are unfocussed staring out of the window or nodding off it slows the flow of learning for the class in general...and as it's such an easy fix (unlike other things) it seems like a no brainer to me.

As per usual, government doesn’t ask schools if this is what is needed or is this the best use of peoples’ taxes (Governments never do!). I worked in school in a quite affluent area when free school meals for FS/KS1 was introduced. So the children of doctors, solicitors, teachers, managers were all getting free lunches paid for by UK taxpayer (mind you, it was also parents’ taxes paying for it!). Now, breakfast clubs are being introduced. These will be used by working parents as free-childcare (and, again, why not, it’s their taxes paying for it) but what about the pre-school clubs and childminders children went to before…all out of a job.
Also, the few families in my school who really needed breakfast (the children who the staff would be making toast and drinks for every morning, as many schools have done so for years) will these children be enjoying breakfast? The answer is NO because their parent/s can never get out of bed to make sure they are in school on time (let alone feed them). The families who race up the school drive in taxis every morning. (Even when they only lived 10 mins walk from school.) Always used to amaze me how these families never had any money but could afford taxis when most of us teachers couldn’t.

Teaching for a while in a low decile secondary school, I did one of the dreaded morning duties - rounding up the kids in the local ice cream shop where they were buying their breakfast. No wonder there was such an obesity issue. Poor little buggers.

Wow, I'm shocked at this. I wouldn't dream of sending my kids to school without having had breakfast.

What type of person wouldn't think this is a good idea?

Have you even read the same thread which is pages in?!

If it is, then that's actually a good use of the money. I think one of the biggest issues for mums is the cost of childcare. If this means a mum can drop off and get to work, then that's brilliant.

I think its a good thing. Well fed kids will learn better, it'll help development and we can't speculate what happens behind closed doors anything that ensures kids get what they need is good in my book

Havent seen the dads mentioned much if at all in this thread

Its in part a policy designed so that parents, particularly those in receipt of benefits, can't justify having to work fewer hours (or wfh) on the basis that wraparound care is not available/too expensive.

In reality better off parents are waking up to the reality that stressed parents juggling full time work + commutes, & anxious children fed cheap low quality food in long hours of childcare each day, is a massive contributor to the mental health crisis.

They will say no. They will afford to go part time, or pay more for childcare, as educated, in demand workers can fight more successfully to work from home some of the time.

So all it does is government a way to require parents who claim benefits, to seek more hours of work once children are school aged.

I think its a good thing. Well fed kids will learn better, it'll help development

Have you seen the free school dinners in schools that don't/can't add to the government funding? They are appalling. The children going to these clubs will not be "well fed". They will be fed small portions of cheap crap.

Reading some of these responses would leave you to believe maybe we should just require parents who are struggling to abdicate responsibility for their children and send them to state funded boarding facilities. Children will be fed and supervised by teachers full time, parents will be free to work for minimum wage morning, noon, and night…win win for all?

Parents need and deserve support so that they can properly look after their children at home, and children deserve the opportunity to be raised and spend most of their time with the parents who love them. Adequate benefits, proper support for adult and child mental health, sure start centres, a functional health visitors service, etc. will help to support this, not ever increasing time in school or state funded childcare.

It's thought to be free cereal from Kellogg, the budget is 60p per child and this needs to cover milk, all staffing costs, heating, washing up etc. ie £18 for 30 dc for 30 mins.

Not UK but our DD’s school had breakfast club. They cannot discriminate as to who can participate or not, thus every student has the opportunity to eat it.

frustratingly that is abused. Our DD’s friend and brother were eating it because mum told them to get their own breakfast together of a morning and they wouldn’t, wasn’t about lack of money or food in the house. They just didn’t like her rules (and were old enough to be able to get their own breakfast together).

The food supply contracts for a school breakfast charity I briefly volunteered with were with ultra processed food makers.

White sliced Chorley wood processed bread, low fruit jam and cheap margarine... The cynic in me feels these schemes are just a way to award public money to big food manufacturers, who are struggling, as those of us who still have the means are avoiding buying their crap.

Have you even attempted to read the comments from other people's pov?
What kind of nasty person would keep a child hungry and in turn missing learning? A pathetic, selfish one, that kind.

@ThistleTits , 1/2 hour of teaching costs more than £18!

Sorry wrong person tagged.

you sound soooo out of touch! It’s about having access to the childcare aswell at that time so parents can be at work for a certain time. A lot of children don’t even eat the food they provide

All I wish is that they would put the money towards something that will improve children's learning or wider education (and yes I realise that hungry children struggle to learn...but as I've said repeatedly I don't imagine many households cannot afford to give their children breakfast; the overwhelming majority can do so. So most of the money put towards this policy will NOT be advancing education, even indirectly).

And I wish that other measures/policies dealt with improving parenting skills / gaps in benefit provision which may mean that some families cannot afford to procure food for breakfast.