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.

It’s a rubbish policy and I hope more schools take this stance.

This is one of the side effects of effectively lengthening the school day that is never discussed. Who deals with extra things that arise like safeguarding or behaviour issues? Teaching staff. Dealing with issues can easily take a decent about of time if it involves sanctions and contacting parents. There is just more time for those issues to arise with a long day. My child's school does lots of lovely (paid) after school clubs but it means teachers are around to see each child out at the end of the day at 4.30 as well as 3.30. It all adds to workload.

These hours don’t work for many people , not enough hours to suit universal credit and many teachers don’t want to do it either .

I can’t see many teachers or TAs agreeing to supervise this. School already starts early and the beginning of the day is always really busy anyway. You’d have to be a fool and a martyr to do it, so it would have to be very well funded to pay for extra staff time. Our groundsman would probably do it but he charges overtime if he is has to come in outside his contracted hours.

It is a bit like asking hospital staff to pop down and serve people in the hospital canteen before they started their shift. You’d have to make it worth their while.

There may not be as many issues if children are fed properly at the beginning of the day.
This is one of the things they are trying to address.

Some schools are managing it though?

Unfortunately we still have as many issues. I'm not saying it's not a good thing for children but it is naive to imagine there isn't an impact on teaching staff.

Edit for spelling

She said her child goes to this school because it’s nearest as she can’t drive but would prefer a “soft transition” loads of schools do breakfast clubs and OP might even get them funded if it’s for her child’s additional needs.

@BurntBroccoli

I don’t actually think this will help the children in some schools that the government think it will.

In my school the children booked into before school club or brought to school on time all have breakfast either in school or at home.

The children who aren’t having breakfast are the ones who get themselves up in the morning and dressed and arrive at school by themselves or dropped off usually late. They won’t be covered by this scheme and will be supported by school staff as usual.

Some schools probably prioritise it over other things depending on the needs of their pupils. Our school does academic booster sessions, homework clubs and a lot of sports activities. We have some bananas and cereal bars on hand for children who don’t always get given breakfast, but most parents do feed their children in the morning. We would really struggle to fund a well supervised, before school childcare slot with decent breakfast provided.

I work in a school, we were offered the opportunity and refused it because

The school would receive 60p per child per day to staff and feed the children.

If they take this government scheme they are not allowed to have funding from any where else to help towards a breakfast club.

This is not feasible for most schools, as the extra money would have to come out of the schools already under funded budget.

The smaller the school the harder it will be to do it.

It's a pie in the sky dream by politicians who have no clue how the real world works.

Our area has a number of schools that were very early adopters. We are a trial area. The job centre is already telling parents claiming UC and JSA with children that they are expected to now available for work from 8.30am and expected to apply for all jobs that offer 8.30am starts as their child can attend a school that offers a "free breakfast club" - if your child's current school doesn't offer it at the moment then you can move them school to one that is.

DD goes to a teeny tiny rural school and they manage to offer wraparound care, it’s always possible if the leadership is motivated to make it happen.

It should be properly funded though, same as all childcare. But I don’t buy the argument that schools can’t do it. They just choose not to prioritise it.

Almost every school in my county can manage it. I don’t think they have a magic money tree.

Just like the after school and holiday clubs it relies on teacher goodwill to run it.
In the end there is only so much teachers can do.

I'm a supply teacher, and a school I was at this week were offering it for the first time. To be honest, walking through the hall, it looked totally chaotic and very unappealing.

Disposable bowls of cereal were out on a table, and a few plates of soggy toast. There were older ones who'd finished eating, stampeding around, making a huge noise, and a small collection of startled, shy-looking little ones dotted around the room not managing to eat. It certainly wasn't the quiet, structured start to the day you might anticipate. I'd be fairly certain those little ones ate pretty close to nothing, defeating the whole purpose of the exercise.

Teachers don’t run it at our school, it’s the dinner ladies and a TA that do it.

Maybe the answer is parents and members of the community coming to run it voluntarily.

You'd never get parents in to run it.

They'd all need enhanced DBS checks, and it would just be a logistical nightmare. What happens on the day that Amy's mum has a doctors appointment? Or the day Amy is off ill? Who is going to cover at very short notice?
The only feasible way to make it work is either with paid staff, specially employed for this, or with existing school staff who'd like to pick up an extra hours pay. And if those staff aren't employed, or the school staff don't want the extra hour/hassle, then what you gonna do?

None of the schools I work with can afford to run the new scheme because m, as others have said, the government aren’t funding it adequately, along with the proposed teachers’ pay increase.

Schools have different capacities and priorities though. So it can be very feasible in one school but less so in another. Sometimes it's lack of willingness, but often it's actually just around differences in funding, cohort and staffing.

For instance the breakfast bistro you mention is also part of thats school pupil premium plan and possibly takes funding from that. Now feeding hungry children may well be a great use of that funding! But I work in a school with a well off parent body, and we actually get donations for breakfast buffets that are set up in classrooms so there isn't a 30 min free childcare element as that would be a cost to us and not a good use of the premium for our cohort.

Our local Primary school has a not for profit breakfast club. For food, staffing etc, for 45 minutes, it costs £2 per child.

Our before and afterschool club has teachers and TA’s who run it. I can’t see our school rolling it out. The before school club is £6.25 so 60p isn’t even close!

So you want parents to send their year 5/6 children to breakfast club so they can clear up after other peoples children? I’m all for giving children more responsibility in their last year of primary, but they are still children who need and deserve to have their own breakfast in peace and chat to their own friends before their school day starts. Without being made to be ‘helpers’ by people on minimum wage.

Most TAs earn more than minimum wage anyway and they would need more than half an hour to set up and run a breakfast club. It’s really not that attractive a deal for TA’s, and they can’t be forced to change their hours. Plus they are often needed at the end of the school day. You just sound like you want to take advantage of them.

DH works in a school, the funding is 60 pence per child, his school had hardly any notice and were expected to have a Breakfast Club up and running after the Easter hols.

Because the funding doesn’t cover costs. Staff are going to be expected to change (rather than be paid for extra hours) hours to accommodate, which has a knock on effect on planning, prep time etc.
it’s a ridiculous idea full stop. What if every child or huge majority turned up? Where does the space and the staff come from?