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?

Allergies etc aside, if we are talking about disadvantaged children who don't get breakfast and go to school starving then I think they will eat anything on offer but better if it's healthy stuff. If kids are turning their noses up at porridge etc then they can't be that hungry really.

My god the middle class handwringing! Bread and jam! Whatever next. Crack cocaine in the coco pops?!

I thought salad bars were the norm at state schools. My child's school has a jacket potato bar with toppings as well. State school.

Of course, due to health reasons, he can't even eat salad so it doesn't apply to him but it's definitely there at his state school.

Wow. There are millions of kids in this country living in dire poverty. They are not necessarily starving to death, and many parents will try to feed them at the expense of other essentials. Free breakfast means more money for heating, clothes, shoes and other things kids can’t do without. The concept of ‘eat porridge or starve’ is such a conservative out of touch trope I’m surprised anyone could write it without giving themselves a slap.

My view, for a very long time, has been parenting payments should be redirected to schools to provide 3 meals a day for all students as well as all school supplies, uniforms and any extra costs eg trips.

Everything our college offers for free breakfast is fried! Sausage bacon egg hash browns and sausage rolls

We had a salad bar at my inner city comprehensive in the late 90s.

Im in Scotland so maybe it’s different but I’ve definitely never heard of such a thing here - and I was involved in a big meeting about school lunch provision as our pta rep.

our kids have to order their lunches online a couple weeks before and they’re brought into the school from a central kitchen. No extras and tiny portions. Free school meals for all until p5 though so really good for those who need it.

People forget that cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals. They are served with milk. They may well be UPF, but Weetabix and Cornflakes are not intrinsically bad foods especially if it's that or nothing.

My unfussy, wealthy, well fed at all other meals kids, used to eat cake and drink nesquick for breakfast. Or Nutella toast. Oh the horror.

Our breakfast club has a toaster for the frozen bread and a fridge. We wouldn’t have the space or ability to provide porridge. We used to pay for our kids to go for childcare reasons and it was toast, yogurts, apples, raisins and Cheerios. Could have Apple juice or water. My kids ate breakfast at home first but it would have been find if they hadn’t. And certainly a lifeline for everyone who needed it.

Literally no one would argue that the priority is children getting breakfast and being fed.

However, the snarky comments ring a bit hollow when the health/poverty gap is so bloody depressing. Nutrition and health factors before adolescence are incredibly important.

There are different threads to this problem, and our wider food culture is part of it. There will be children who will be resistant to eating different, simple, healthy food, and others with allergies and also SEND to be taken into account. There will also be plenty of kids without any of those factors.

All children should be offered healthy, nutritious food, and not just cheap crap that is going to contribute to poor health in later life.

OP, you're getting unfairly flamed!

I've understood your post as being "free breakfasts should be better quality". Which is absolutely true!

The current arrangement, means that children who are already more likely to be disadvantaged and vulnerable, are being given food which is bad for them and also receiving a poor nutritional education. If they're at school for breakfast, they'll eat what's there. It's a golden opportunity to get something nutritious in them and teach them about healthful food!

Not to even start down the road of why their parents (in a lot of cases), are working so many hours, or are so poor, that they can't feed their children.

The whole situation is disgusting, that as a society, we can't even get it together, to feed our children properly. We need to do better.

I can think of multiple children who would be hospitalised or worse from 60% of those suggestions - nut & egg anaphylaxis. Assuming that we are automatically discounting any kid with coeliac disease, that leaves toast and cereal. So we're back to where we started.

I work in a deprived area in the NW. nutritional standards and salad bar with water or milk to drink has been the norm for many many years. Food waste is enormous though as our children tend to reject vegetables and anything ‘healthy’ as they’re not used to it. Breakfast club offers whole meal toast with various toppings, low sugar cereal and milk or water. We also offer break time toast or fruit. I’ve been working in deprived communities for 25 years and seen children removed by SS twice and certainly never for just neglect. They don’t get involved unless it’s literally life or death. I’m laughing my arse off here at the thought of any of our kids eating avocado on toast.

School canteens are often run by 3rd party providers, and breakfast clubs run by the school. The 3rd party privider won't allow the staff running breakfast lub to use the kitchen / their faciliries, meaning breakfast club food is cereal, toast or fruit.

Bearing in mind the minimal funding for breakfast club, food is bouht in a very very tight budget.

The 3rd party providers meals are dire, yet while their quality has caused meal numbers tto drop, they argue the school misled the number of meals they hoped to serve and have successfully charged schools for the lack.of meals and income!

Schools are getting shafted left, right and centre financially - the governent won't care and trysts and MATs are just taking the issues away from.local authorities... when these trusts fail then you get even more cobbled together private companies / trusts getting involved... nothing is going to improve. Whatever money there is, very little trickles down to children.

WTAF. In Australia virtually no schools offer breakfast clubs, despite there being a section of the population who desperately need it.
Families whose kids attend breakfast clubs use it because they HAVE TO. Because there’s no money. Like none. Education and educators are already held responsible for much more than appears on their job description and you want to add breakfast drama to it? FFS.

Lucky people like the op aren’t in charge of initiatives like this. Imagine letting children growing up in difficult situations go hungry in the mornings incase you might not (without any proof) approve of the quality of the food!

It’s very mean spirited and miserly. I used to think it was mainly children and the elderly who were badly effected by the pandemic but it seems like a whole swath of adults lost social skills and now have a diminished ability to empathise with others in their communities. I can only hope things improve as time goes on.

The main cost is the staffing costs surely?

It would be cheaper for parents to feed their kids.

Maybe we are putting a sticking plaster on a larger problem.

DS’s school dinners are nothing like that. Jollof rice, three bean chilli, curries, pasta bakes, jacket potatoes, roast dinners. They do have fish and chips on a Friday, but that’s the only day they have chips. No burgers, donuts or nuggets. Veg every day, salad bar, fruit available at mid morning break and for dessert (and the kids do choose it).

Breakfast club is toast, jam and cereals, but you are never going to have them cooking a full English to order, and they are nut-free so no peanut butter etc. DS usually has breakfast at home before breakfast club (porridge with fruit), and then sometimes has a slice of buttered toast when he gets there (he doesn’t go every day). I don’t think a piece of buttered wholemeal toast is the worst breakfast in the world tbh, especially if the alternative is no breakfast at all.

After school club is a choice of cheese, ham or jam on a baguette. Not amazing, but it is only meant to be a snack.

Exactly.

It's a reason why they are often the go to options as well as obviously the cost. Nuts often aren't available in the majority of primary schools anyway, my child's school is nut free.

We absolutely are. Why are parents not feeding their children breakfast? Why do I have a class of children where the vast majority haven't had anything to eat OR DRINK when they come to me at 9.15am.

At my child's school, they pick what they want each morning during registration.

fine if you want to give your little darlings organic eggs and wholemeal toast, but what about the others less fortunate who otherwise go with nothing?

To be quite honest, I think we are far too unquestioning of crap parenting these days.
I've only read the first couple of pages but I've seen many posts parroting parents can't afford to feed their children breakfast, without seemingly any critical thinking employed.
On Ocardo - hardly the cheapest but for ease - a wholemeal loaf is 75p and a jar if jam is £1, both M&S.
Are we really REALLY saying that some people can't afford £1.75 for breakfast for at least a week? Come on!
As long as stuff is given for free, people will take it. It's a complete waste of taxpayers' money and is extremely unlikely to catch the children who live in chaotic homes, who quite frankly are the only ones whose parents cannot be arsed to spend under £2 for a week's breakfast. No amount of middle-class handwringing will alter that,

You work closely with schools and are actually asking this question?
There is no separating the children that have healthy breakfasts provided at home to those that haven't. Children often hide the failings of their parents. Surely this is far more important than some kids having an extra slice of toast of a morning.
As for making up a big vat of porridge, from my experience the TAs are responsible for this sort of thing, not the lunch/catering staff, and they already have a lot on their plate supporting the teachers, dealing with parents, admin, not to mention all the adhoc everyday random bits of support they offer to the children.
Not only that, children can be notoriously fussy so usually the most basic piece of toast or bagel is a better option to encourage children to eat. It's less about nutrition and just getting something in their bellies.
How long have you actually experienced working in schools, and what range of demographics, because you sound pretty naive to be questioning this provision at all. I wonder if you have come properly face to face with malnourished children at all? Children that squirrel away bits of food they can get through the school day to share with their siblings at home. Because I have, and it's absolutely heartbreaking.
Your suggestion in the title is to scrap them unless the quality is up to scratch, which is just ridiculous.