School turned down funded breakfast club

[MightyGoldBear]

The school my children go to were part of the 750 selected, as the first roll outs for funded breakfast club. They turned it down! And said they won't do it even when it's rolled out for all schools.

It would of helped so many children and parents. Their reasoning was the school is too small. It's absolutely not.
Am I being unreasonable to find this so frustrating?

They don't offer after school club they don't offer any holiday clubs. I have a sen child who would really benefit with a soft transition into school. He has had periods of school refusal.
This is our nearest school. I don't drive (cant afford to learn, working is difficult with care needs) My sen child can't tolerate other transport than with me or his dad. We have no outside help.

It's just so frustrating that the school made all the right sounds at one point that they were going to offer more for children and parents. Only to turn it all down. With the cost of living crisis there will undoubtedly be children going to school hungry or sometimes just life happens and that chance to have breakfast or a soft transition would set more children up for the day. It just seems really rubbish of them to not even try a reduced scaled down version of it.

@Unknown25 how much do schools get to run it? Schools are against it if it is going to cost them, end up with staff running it without being paid and probably having to pay for some of the food etc, which they already do for some school resources and hungry kids who come to school without breakfast

It’s not just the cost. In a small school it’s every hand to the pump and who is going to get up at the crack of dawn to earn a pittance for an hour? They struggle to employ actual TAs these days because of the behaviour of children and their entitled parents. Teachers are barely hanging in there. If I was a Headteacher I’d be prioritising the mental health of my staff, not working parents, and I too would be telling them to shove their breakfast club.

It seems a shame they couldn't run it means tested so those on higher income pay more, those on very low income don't have to pay. I also think it should be prioritised for kids who's parents are working in the early mornings. Or there's a SEN need at home etc. that makes breakfast at home difficult.
But if everyone wanted to use it then presumably they would need extra staff and lots of space as regular ones wouldn't necessarily be able to do extra hours.

Maybe there isn't the uptake amongst parents.

As a headteacher, fairly recently, I offered breakfast club for 50p per session, 7.30am until then start of school, food included. ( and the same again after school, until 18.00).

We regularly had 4 children attend plus an occasion other, but needed two staff minimum. I had to be that staff member as we couldn't find people who wanted/could work before/after school.
My governors stopped the club, due to lack of uptake and the impact on my health and wellbeing.

Classic government tactics.
Announce a poorly funded and poorly thought through scheme.
The schools cannot deliver (as it is poorly funded and poorly thought through).
Parents annoyed at the school.
Poor school staff have to field the questions and complaints in what little time they already have.

SLOW 👏

Childcare funding for under 2s is around £11 an hour with a ratio of 1:3?

Nurseries generally charge £10 an hour?

The whole new breakfast club is a con. My child’s school is doing the trial. The time between the school gate opening and when pupils can arrive (and the being teachers are there also) and the register closing which at my school is 30 minutes is being included in the breakfast club hours so the school isn’t actually opening any earlier 😂 anyone thinking it will save them money on paid for breakfast clubs or enable them to get to work on time are going to be very disappointed

Trying to staff them is a bloody nightmare. No one wants to do it for the hours on mw. Same with afterschools and holiday clubs.

Plus there's been a massive drop in kids attending breakfast clubs and afterschools in out area since covid as so many parents are working flexible or working from home.
At least 2 have closed.

Same, our primary school breakfast club is funded by Greggs so it would be interesting to know how much funding they give to schools.

Our school is also a trial school. Judging by all the emails we've had from the head this week regarding parent behavior and addressing misconceptions at the "free breakfast club" it is a shit show and also likely to be dropped. As at @usererror57 school, ours is also counting the gates open and register closing time in the 30 minutes, so you are essentially getting 10 minutes extra.

We had the crazy parent whatsapps about the free breakfast club , someone in the school had it on "good authority" and started the rumour it would be sponsored by Kelloggs and that all the free breakfast would be those little Kellogg's boxes and little cartons of milk and so you could go in and grab the boxes and milk and take them home. Kelloggs were giving the school it for free so surely those un-used ones would be fair game to take home. Someone else then added that they had it on "good authority" that the milk would be Arla and therefore the govt was "poisoning" children. Every class WhatsApp was inundated with these theories and batshittery. There were rumors that the whole family could attend and have breakfast for free. Imagine the disappointment some (entitled) parents had when they discovered it was basic cheap cereal, supermarket milk and no the whole family could not eat for free.

Then there was the kick off that the paid breakfast club got more choice, fresh fruit and better cereal than the free one. The paid breakfast club is run by an independent company and also runs the after school provision and holiday provision and charges £££ for it. They are not even on school premises but attached to a large day nursery but then walk the children 3 doors down the road to the school and collect from the school gate, and are therefore unofficially considered the wrap around for the school.

After the discovery that you are only really getting 10 extra minutes, the whole family don't get fed for free and it is not little boxes of Kelloggs cereals and little cartons of Arla milk that are a free for all and floggable on FB marketplace, the free breakfast club provision seems to be going down like a lead balloon. Plus any working parent that needs breakfast club childcare is far better provided for at existing wrap around provisions as they offer 7.30 or 7.45 opening and after school care until 5.30 or 6pm.

The whole point of the scheme is to make sure the buggers are fed, sweetheart. Not to provide actual childcare.

Because it’s NOT actually fully funded. Schools can’t even afford glue sticks, and teaching assistants who leave are not being replaced. They absolutely cannot afford to ‘top up’ the inadequate funding for this.

I hope with your attitude you're not actually allowed near any young developing minds

It's massively underfunded, schools are already, with staffing, running at a loss.

It's doomed to fail.

What do you mean by overrun with children of parents who don't have to get to work? Doyou mean families wealthy enough they don't need to work or families who are unemployed?

It is set up to ensure children are fed, that's its purpose: the families who are unemployed might need this service and be it's targeted demographic: the government flinging ideas around, poorly planned and poorly funded,to try and get children's attendance and attainment up (rather than addressing why a childbeing fed might need to become school's responsible and ignoring the cost if living crisis and shitstorm of why so many households are at the point of neglect)

Can't you distinguish between what an adult MNer is saying online and what they would say in RL?

To be fair you did make a snarky comment.

Breakfast clubs at the schools local to us are £5 a day from 8-8:50am and are billed to parents termly so the school know exactly how many children they need to provide for and supervise.

The Gov are giving 0.60p per child without giving any of stability.

It wasn't actually snarky, it just amused me, the way she wrote it.

parents will use it so they can get to work on time, I had visions of loaves of bread over seeing the children.

but I forget Mumnet has changed and you're no longer allowed a sense of humour & people are allowed to be horrid about throwing loaves of cheap white bread at under privileged children.

But throwing loaves of cheap white bread to underprivileged children is a horrible thing to say and as someone dealing with those children isn't something that should even cross their minds.

Yeah, 60p per child is Just absolutely ridiculous, it comes from people who have no idea of the cost of anything, and that's just the food let alone the utilities and staffing.

It's just sound bites.

I don’t work, I’m disabled myself and a carer for my disabled child. Sometimes I have to attend medical appointments 2+ hours away, with my appointments often being at 9am so I have to put my child in breakfast club to be able to attend these. Just because I cannot work doesn’t mean it’s not needed.

We live in a really deprived area so my sons school have had breakfast supplied for years they have their breakfast in the classroom in the first 15mins of school whilst completing morning work no extra staff or space needed. The options are things like brioche rolls, cereal bars and a piece of fruit and a carton of milk so no need to make anything hot or with dishes to tidy. children just grab what they want from the breakfast basket and put their wrappers in the bin.

When my kids where in primary lunch was done over 3 sittings. How exactly are they supposed to feed all the children every morning when this is what's needed?