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.

My son goes to breakfast clubs already as I work. I think it should be means tested, I don't mind paying. I personally would prefer any extra funding to go towards more teaching assistants rather than breakfast clubs. Every yr I hear about lack of funding and cutting down numbers of TA's.

I totally get that, it is expensive for parents and the main reason people need childcare is because it's nearly impossible to run a home on a single income any more.

Outsourcing childcare to others (largely women on minimum wage) is the current solution we have and it's expensive because children are important to keep safe (ratios) and extras such as food, energy, rents, wages, and COL has impacted settings hugely.

I just wondered because you seem sure the state funded way is the solution but you seem to have quite a simplistic view of how much things should cost. Sadly I think you'll be disappointed. It's not just childcare, look at dentists, GPs, social housing... the government can't solve this by skimping on funding.

Yes, but if we’d have invested in infrastructure for on-site school nurseries (by capital borrowing when interest rates were zero), there would be less funding required to pay other people’s mortgages or rent.

As I said, you have a very simplistic view of how much it costs to care for children.

I'm a childminder, whatever job I do is going to need to pay enough to pay my rent. Why are you advocating that other women should accept being paid poorly to fund a free childcare system? Are you a man?

No! I’m very much a woman thank you!

Look at Finland, much better system as they have invested in early childhood education for many years:
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/10/how-finlands-public-childcare-system-puts-britain-to-shame

60p per child....
To cover food, extra staff, electricity etc...
Not worth it.

The 'funding' doesn't anywhere near cover the cost of running the breakfast clubs so it's entirely unsurprising that schools are turning it down. They don't have the budget to partially fund it.

I know for a fact my children will have a much better breakfast at home. A small bowl of cereal on school premises isn’t going to help hungry children. In fact, the school dinner offerings at most state primaries are woeful. Tiny tiny portions and poor quality. However, the real reason for this, is to get more parents out to work and paying tax. More pressure on businesses to allow more flexibility would allow more parents time in the morning to give their children breakfast at home.

Countries like Finland have a different demographic to us which can have an impact on services they provide

Sounds beautiful. Do you think they get away with paying 60p per child? If you think this is the offering you will receive from the British government, you will sadly be disappointed. Take a look at the school buildings they are squeezing them in to, they are falling down!

I admire your insistence that cheap care is the way to go. Sadly from inside the system I can be confident it isn't.

Like most of anything to do with education unfortunately. It's just not a priority for some reason 🥺

They have also invested in childhood education over the years. We haven’t and the proverbial is hitting the fan now.

How do countries fund this and the other social benefits they provide? I know the Scandi countries have higher taxation and Norway is very rich due to well invested oil revenues, but I believe France and the Netherlands are very good at this.How?

The fact is that the government, and previous governments in this country have not invested in early childhood. Specifically infrastructure and training. Providers in Finland are educated to teacher level. We could have done that years ago.
The trouble with the current funding approach means the government have to throw more and more money at it as the cost of living/ mortgage rates increase for third party providers.

If a school has owned premises, they can afford to pay their staff more and invest in them as they don’t have that extra outlay.

If the state owned the water companies, we wouldn’t have to pay shareholders and any excess profit could be reinvested into the water supply system.

Regarding the Breakfast scheme, this is a trial and I hope they learn from it. Yes, I accept the payment may need to rise. Schools have been underfunded for decades so unfortunately their budgets are tight.

Big adult/ child ratios too which is cheaper.

I was watching an American show and a home daycare lady charged $25 per day. I wondered how until I heard she had 7 little children to take care of! She was licensed by the state so not dodgy under the table stuff.

State model over private.
Private is always more expensive in the long run.

Yes but they are usually teachers so ratios can be higher. I think even here the ratio can be 1:13 for under 5s if they are QTS.

Is that what you want for your child? 1:13? Regardless of them having a teaching qualification, they still only have one pair of hands, pair of eyes, arms to cuddle. It's different when they are older and at school, but little ones need picking up when they cry, nappies changing, help feeding, supervision on play equipment.

Sorry that's not safe at all at those levels of supervision!

Its only 1:13 from 3 years old.

Remember with a different demographic ratios may be important. Many children are turning up in reception class in England still in nappies, compare to Switzerland where children are expected to walk to school without parents at that age

Wow! I didn't realise that that was what was allocated to each child! There was a presenter on LBC last week who kept referring to the staff who 'were going to be needed to cook these breakfasts'. Like they were going to be getting a full English. As if!

Actually the ratios are similar for younger children
https://blog.hope-education.co.uk/finland-best-education-system/

The key is investment into the state early years sector

Our school turned it down too. I’m not sure why but it sounds like maybe it wasn’t funded properly.

Is it an Academy?

@BurntBroccoli what difference does it make whether it is an Academy?