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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that free breakfast at school is a bad idea due to the quality?

637 replies

Mushypeass · 07/06/2025 21:20

Firstly, I fully agree with the principle of free breakfast for all pupils. My reservation comes from the quality of food that is often served up in UK school canteens. Obviously a poor quality breakfast is better than no breakfast at all but AIBU that it could encourage children to eat even more UPFs? For example, children who have may had a relatively healthy breakfast at home may now opt eat UPFs at school with their pals instead.

Seocondly, why is the food so poor in so many schools? How can other countries manage to provide their youth with nutritious and healthy meals but we can’t?

OP posts:
witwatwoo · 07/06/2025 22:31

It’s not necessarily poverty but dysfunctional parents, addiction etc. I could tell many tales, nothing shocks me any more

MonTuesWeds · 07/06/2025 22:31

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:29

I honestly do not believe that a parent is so poor they cannot afford a bag of oats, milk/water and apples.

It's not so much the money, the kids won't eat fruit or porridge so it really would be a waste of money.

Nurseryquestions86 · 07/06/2025 22:32

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:27

That is pretty bad. Wholemeal toast, fruit, weetabix is fine/ok. The rest is definitely not pretty good. It’s pretty bad actually.

I never said it was pretty good. I said it wasn't the end of the world and I stand by a crumpet not being the end of the world.

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:32

Nurseryquestions86 · 07/06/2025 21:47

My friend works in a school and has had to buy jumpers for her students and take uniform home to wash it as they are coming into school wearing filthy clothes, unbathed and hungry.

Making yoghurt will not be high on her list and a bowl of cornflakes although processed will make sure a child can actually learn as they are not starving.

I don't think some people realise the issues some schools face honestly.

Edited

Those children should not be living with those parents. That is pure neglect.

Givemethesun · 07/06/2025 22:33

OP out of interest what do you deem an awful UPF breakfast example that they may serve? And what do you usually give your kids at home for breakfast? As pp said I’m pretty health conscious to be honest but breakfast it’s weetabix or porridge and let’s go. (My kids are in a privileged position and get plenty of fruit and veg later in the day.)

Mischance · 07/06/2025 22:33

Government comes up with ideas that people on the ground have to implement somehow. Small rural schools don't have canteens. They will have to find some way of buying in a service or sandwiches. Some things sound great on paper .........

SteamLover · 07/06/2025 22:33

I agree that there needs to be some kind of nutritional guideline for the breakfasts otherwise it is going to be high sugar, high carb processed food that is served due to time and money constraints.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 07/06/2025 22:33

Mushypeass · 07/06/2025 21:44

@Missedthis @mrsmalcolmreynolds

My whole career has been spent supporting disadvantaged children mainly due to the fact I was one many years ago. There is no pearl clutching here. The fact I was 22 before I ever tasted any other vegetable than a potato or carrot is exactly why I am concerned about the content of these meals. These children need food education more than most. Or should they just have their gruel and be thankful?

There would have been fruit and vegetables available in your school dinners - apples, bananas, satsumas, fruit salad, prunes or peaches with custard, apple crumble, depending upon age a fruit pot, lettuce and tomato in prepacked sandwiches, veg including pulses and legumes with the main (often hidden in the stew/cottage pie/etc or the ubiquitous frozen diced carrot, peas and broccoli or peas and sweetcorn), salad/veg in the coleslaw for the jacket potatoes. Was there a reason that you did not have them?

Even the chicken wings and pizza served now have tomato and often other vegetables hidden in the sauce and where breakfast is being served outside the nutritional constraints of the catering companies, jam contains fruit; it's not jam if it doesn't.

Don't forget that you would also have likely had a full hour in which to queue up, get your food, sit down with a proper plate and cutlery and eat in a place with enough seating for everybody. These days, you could have 20 minutes (as the first sitting is for the other half of the school) in which to hurriedly eat something with your fingers or a plastic fork.

I've got direct experience of school meals from the 1970s to the present day. There's no reason why a child entitled to have school meals would be unable to access fruit and vegetables every day and, as such, a couple of slices of toast, some fortified cereal (including milk), a bagel or, Heaven Forfend, a Pain au Chocolat from either a packet or from the ovens if it's a school that still has a kitchen and a private company prepared to supply staff in the mornings because it's cost effective/profitable to do so - is not a harmful thing outside the realms of orthorexia.

In any case, to use a phrase generally expected to refer to deciding whether to formula feed or breast feed, but is equally relevant for children past that age;

Fed is best.

user1473878824 · 07/06/2025 22:33

RaininSummer · 07/06/2025 22:29

I don't understand your comment. Wholemeal bread or porridge are hardly unusual or that expensive but far more nutritious and healthy than white bread and most cereals. Poorer kids deserve healthy food too not the cheapest crap available.

I completely agree. But I think it’s wilfully naive to pretend most children who will benefit most from a free breakfast would be better off getting it at home because there isn’t the time or money.

Kirbert2 · 07/06/2025 22:34

RaininSummer · 07/06/2025 22:29

I don't understand your comment. Wholemeal bread or porridge are hardly unusual or that expensive but far more nutritious and healthy than white bread and most cereals. Poorer kids deserve healthy food too not the cheapest crap available.

Unless a child has dietary needs, of course.

For my child, white bread is healthier for him so I'm glad that school offers white bread.

Pieceofpurplesky · 07/06/2025 22:34

Having taught kids who were unfed it’s a great idea.
i have a drawer full of breakfast bars now for the kids in my form I know have had no breakfast. I found out that one boy took a sandwich every day for his free school meal and only ate half of it - so he could take the other half home for his brothers to have something to eat in the evening. Mum and Dad were in the pub most nights. I gave him breakfast for 5 years and his brothers when they started.
Poverty is rife in the UK and not always in the areas you would expect.

EcoCustard · 07/06/2025 22:35

@feelingbleh mine don’t attend. They have porridge, scrambled egg, yoghurt & fruit or peanut butter & toast before I go to work &Dh drops them off before work. Many of the kids sadly get more shite for lunch & dinner, no idea. One of the parents I know well thinks their excelling as their Dc get veg with dinner twice a week (well off). School lunches aren’t great, & once ks1/eyfs is done most don’t purchase lunches as there expensive for a limited choice that isn’t made onsite. I work in a secondary school & the emphasis on nutrition & eating is woeful. Fizzy drinks, ice poles , cookies & a fried roast potato with soggy veg isn’t conducive to afternoon learning whilst walking around a yard in all weathers.

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:35

MonTuesWeds · 07/06/2025 22:31

It's not so much the money, the kids won't eat fruit or porridge so it really would be a waste of money.

If children are hungry and that’s what they are offered, they will.

or whole meal bread, weetabix , etc….lots of cheap and healthier cereals.

I stand by my point am that we are enabling poor parenting and neglect.

if kids are going to school unfed, unclothed and dirty, why the hell are they still with their parents?

witwatwoo · 07/06/2025 22:36

Pieceofpurplesky · 07/06/2025 22:34

Having taught kids who were unfed it’s a great idea.
i have a drawer full of breakfast bars now for the kids in my form I know have had no breakfast. I found out that one boy took a sandwich every day for his free school meal and only ate half of it - so he could take the other half home for his brothers to have something to eat in the evening. Mum and Dad were in the pub most nights. I gave him breakfast for 5 years and his brothers when they started.
Poverty is rife in the UK and not always in the areas you would expect.

This ! So much utter naivety on this thread

Livelovebehappy · 07/06/2025 22:36

Mushypeass · 07/06/2025 21:34

I don’t work at a school but I visit them as part of my role. I’ve seen donuts, pizza, chicken wings, chips, chicken nuggets, cheese burgers, etc. quite frequently. Very few vegetables or fruit in my experience.

You’re talking breakfasts though? Hardly going to be fry ups (nor pizzas and nuggets). I can’t see what unhealthy food is going be on offer for breakfast. I would imagine cereals, maybe breakfast bars.

witwatwoo · 07/06/2025 22:37

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:35

If children are hungry and that’s what they are offered, they will.

or whole meal bread, weetabix , etc….lots of cheap and healthier cereals.

I stand by my point am that we are enabling poor parenting and neglect.

if kids are going to school unfed, unclothed and dirty, why the hell are they still with their parents?

You clearly have no idea about the care system and SS. Spend a few days in a school in a deprived area and you will have your eyes opened.

Onelifeonly · 07/06/2025 22:39

Where I work the children always have access to fruit, cooked veg and salad (for lunch, that is). Many of the older children in particular will not take much, if any, of these things. They also complain the food is tasteless as due to health reasons, salt etc isn't used.

As for white bread / crumpets / bagels for breakfast etc - they all have the same basic ingredients. Plus children need carbohydrate and fat in a balanced diet. And there's no point serving what they won't eat.

And free breakfasts are aimed mainly at those who go without or have a pack of crisps on the way to school, not the children of middle class museli/ home made bread eaters with plenty of fruit on the side.

If it doesn't appeal, don't send your children to have breakfast.

cheesycheesy · 07/06/2025 22:39

It’s not available at my son’s school for free and I wouldn’t need to send him in. It’s better than some children going hungry though.

Justkeepingplatesspinning · 07/06/2025 22:39

For some children, food at school might be the only food they get during the day. Anything to reduce the empty tummy and give them a bit of brain boost has to be better than nothing.
To provide breakfast club or toast during soft start, schools are needing to pay a staff member to make the food. Often with no budget provision to do this. It's not unheard of for teachers to bring in cereal for their class if school doesn't have a breakfast club. If you've got a very limited budget, you go cheap and cheerful.
To really find out what's happening in schools, you could send a FOI request to each academy chain (and / or the local authority if you're not in England) to ask what their menu is for breakfast and lunch provision. Or it might be on their website.

feelingbleh · 07/06/2025 22:39

EcoCustard · 07/06/2025 22:35

@feelingbleh mine don’t attend. They have porridge, scrambled egg, yoghurt & fruit or peanut butter & toast before I go to work &Dh drops them off before work. Many of the kids sadly get more shite for lunch & dinner, no idea. One of the parents I know well thinks their excelling as their Dc get veg with dinner twice a week (well off). School lunches aren’t great, & once ks1/eyfs is done most don’t purchase lunches as there expensive for a limited choice that isn’t made onsite. I work in a secondary school & the emphasis on nutrition & eating is woeful. Fizzy drinks, ice poles , cookies & a fried roast potato with soggy veg isn’t conducive to afternoon learning whilst walking around a yard in all weathers.

But that's on the parents. The government and teachers can't raise every child in this country

RavenLaw · 07/06/2025 22:40

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:35

If children are hungry and that’s what they are offered, they will.

or whole meal bread, weetabix , etc….lots of cheap and healthier cereals.

I stand by my point am that we are enabling poor parenting and neglect.

if kids are going to school unfed, unclothed and dirty, why the hell are they still with their parents?

Because the threshold to remove children from their parents is necessarily very very high indeed and not getting wholemeal bread and weetabix isn't that threshold.

There's a very famous quote from a High Court family case, “…society must be willing to tolerate very diverse standards of parenting, including the eccentric, the barely adequate and the inconsistent. It follows too that children will inevitably have both very different experiences of parenting and very unequal consequences flowing from it. It means that some children will experience disadvantage and harm, while others will flourish in atmospheres of loving security and emotional stability. These are the consequences of our fallible humanity and it is not the provenance of the state to spare children all the consequences of defective parenting. In any event, it simply could not be done.”

Dwimmer · 07/06/2025 22:40

The ‘free’ breakfasts rolled out by Labour have to be provided for just 60p per pupil per day.

I disagree with universal free breakfasts. I think most parents can and should be providing breakfast for their children.

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:41

Givemethesun · 07/06/2025 22:33

OP out of interest what do you deem an awful UPF breakfast example that they may serve? And what do you usually give your kids at home for breakfast? As pp said I’m pretty health conscious to be honest but breakfast it’s weetabix or porridge and let’s go. (My kids are in a privileged position and get plenty of fruit and veg later in the day.)

Eggs on whole meal , avo on whole meal, peanut butter on wholemeal, porridge with a teaspoon of Nutella on a Friday, weetabix. Always with fruits.
different everyday as variety is so important. These things take minutes to prepare.

we have only ever offered whole meal, and only water. I dint get it when people say their kids will only drink juice…..they weren’t drinking it in the womb, were they? They only know what juice is because it’s been given to them at some point.

ThisDandyWriter · 07/06/2025 22:42

witwatwoo · 07/06/2025 22:37

You clearly have no idea about the care system and SS. Spend a few days in a school in a deprived area and you will have your eyes opened.

So this is what the govt should be tackling and spending on.

not free breakfast fir a lot of families who can afford to feed their children.

CantStopMoving · 07/06/2025 22:42

I thought the purpose of the breakfast clubs was not actually the breakfast but the childcare so people could get to work earlier