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

[Mushypeass]

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?

A cheap and cheerful breakfast is better than no breakfast.

But I agree that school dinners are absolute shite. My dc's school serve very strange dishes such as chickpea and sweet potato roast, hot dog jambalaya or roasted vegetable and cranberry slice. I appreciate the effort they make to include some vegetables but how many children will eat that? Even if those dishes were nice, the mass produced versions shipped out to schools are most certainly not. Why can't they just have some grilled chicken, veg and roast potatoes? Because money 😕

So why are they not even fully funding the dinner that they put on years ago? That could do with getting sorted first. Schools shouldn't have to cut classroom support to feed kids who can afford it because the government withdrew funding a year after it was introduced.

Why would you ever introduce your child to chocolate breakfast cereal in the first place though?! My kids don’t know it exists.

I totally agree with you. It’s shit. The country is shit and so broken, it can’t be fixed.

So does ours but the session costs about £6 from 7.30 to the start of school which is significantly more than the breakfast club funding from the government

There are a few comments on this thread that suggest families who neglect their children to the extent of not having food should have children removed,

I’m the safeguarding lead at an urban secondary school- the threshold for removal is so unbelievably high that most people not working within the system wouldn’t believe it. I can’t even get outside agency support for children who are being neglected at this level, never mind the SS input needed to move to legal proceedings.

Schools are the only agency who cannot, and do not, step away from supporting children and families.

I can’t actually remember the last time I had a conversation about curriculum, or my teaching practice- all my time is soaked up trying to keep children in school and safe.

A breakfast club is part of that.

We really don’t have the resources to be teaching children to make their own yogurt, either. <laughs, in a way anyone who works in safeguarding will understand>

Feel superior do we ? Hoist those judgy pants up a bit higher

Completely agree!

Yes, yes and yes again

All our schools have a salad bar and serve healthy food at lunch time.
The rules about what can be served are very strict.

We are not providing any breakfast in some schools but the ones where we do have a waiting list because the kids enjoy the food.

But it isn’t just about the money! Porridge with banana or in-season fruit is cheap, but they won’t serve it in schools cos lots of the kids won’t eat it - or someone thinks they won’t.

I don't know where you get your evidence that a school breakfast is worse quality than most kids get at home. As a supply teacher, I see loads of breakfast clubs' food and it is usually buttered bagels or brown toast, cornflakes or similar (none of the high sugar varieties), fruit and yoghurts. Only water to drink because of the budget, but water is the best thing you can give them. Left-over bagels are given out at break-time and they are very popular.

My dc are entitled to FSM. I took ds off them because it’s mainly ultra processed stuff that aggravates his reflux and probable adhd. He is much better on packed lunches where I know what he’s eating. Dd is about to leave school and there is rarely any veggie option and the portions are tiny. No plates either-pizza is served on a bit of card. Not a paper plate, a bit of card. One tiny slice of pizza for growing teenagers and those on FSM have to have the meal deal of a drink (often fizzy flavoured artificially sweetened water in a plastic bottle), nuggets and chips type meal and a cookie. The options at break are half a bagel, sausage barm, bacon barm, toast, danish pastries, doughnuts. You have to pay for those. Kids on FSM don’t get anything at break.

Breakfast club at primary school was UPF toast and margarine, UPF cereal, squash with artificial sweeteners. Same for after school club. Utter shite.

The quality needs to improve.

Voted YABU because it makes no sense to say that if we can't provide the best breakfast on the state, we shouldn't provide anything - which is the implication of your title. By all means lobby for more funding for schools to provide better breakfasts (seriously - they're basically magicking this out of thin air).

In the meantime, something is better than nothing - we have plenty of research on the effect that skipping breakfast has on learning. So no, we shouldn't be removing free breakfast - we should be investing in it.

Clearly not enough otherwise we wouldn’t hear all these examples of children in dirty clothes or underclothed, without having had breakfast etc etc. how are we in a situation where teachers are having to take in breakfast bars ffs?

I absolute agree with you.

Yep.

Real life often involves other factors and is rarely if ever black and white and oh so simple.

Children who are used to eating white bread, coco pops and in the more extreme cases things such as crisps and chocolate for breakfast aren't going to start magically eating porridge with fruit for breakfast.

Children with SEN who have limited diets and may only eat white bread or coco pops also aren't magically going to start eating healthier either.

and then you have children with allergies and/or dietary needs. This is my child, he can't eat wholemeal foods due to medical reasons and is under a dietician so it isn't actually the best option for him.

You don’t work in the system do you ? Very easy to lecture when you’re on the outside

Sad thing is that people think that is it the families who lack money who do not have breakfast. From experience this is not always the case. Many families with money also do not give breakfast as routine. It is not always about lack of money. Sometimes it is lack of caring.

So what do you think SS do ?

Burgers for breakfast?

Nothing wrong with potatoes and carrots.

I’ve never seen or heard of a salad bar at a state school. The private schools have them though. Sounds nice! The meals at my kids schools are terrible but fortunately we are in the position to pack lunches at home.

We've already been told that in France, parents are charged €5 a day.

I’m not lecturing anyone. I just don’t believe we are funding the right things . There needs to be a lot more money given to schools /social care to support families that really need it. Giving shit breakfasts to about if people that don’t need it is a waste of funds.

sure start was a good intervention. Foster parents need more support, sen support etc etc.

i work on the edge of the school sector and do a lot of volunteering with underprivileged children.

I definitely don’t have the answers, I only see what needs to be improved.

but isn’t this what we pay our ministers their salaries for? To come up with the solutions and implement?