Free school breakfast for every child

[greyingunderneath]

Is this a good use of funding? I am not very well off financially but I don’t mind providing a slice of toast for my child and can’t say it will make any difference to me financially if they provide it instead.
I don’t know how much this is costing the government but it seems like a waste of resources to me.

“It’s not actually free, it’s being funded by taxes, which may have to go up, to cover such expenses”

I completely think that food and cooking equipment should be provided for those who can’t otherwise afford it, and even cooking classes if adults are unsure how to make porridge etc.

Is this starting soon then? I heard about it ages ago but not seen anything since. My company is a wraparound care company. This will affect my business negatively (I know it’s not all about me but there is a bigger picture to think about)

I don't think it will solve the problem it is trying to address, DH worked for a long time in children and youth mental health/criminal justice the families whose children need this the most aren't going to get their children into school early enough for breakfast, for some it's a struggle to get them to take the children in at all. Also for those not quite as extreme as this the breakfasts schools provide aren't always great. DS had been a few times when work has required both of us to be in early and he still has breakfast at home, usually overnight oats with mashed banana, nut butter etc or porridge with fruit, or Greek yogurt fruit and some granary toast, if we have time sometimes he has eggs etc, breakfast club was white bread toast with margarine and jam, cornflakes or own brand Cheerios. It's better than nothing but it's not exactly a nutritious start and DS' school is 38% pupil premium and lots of low income households

Thanks, assuming that's what the poster definitely means. I personally have no issue with this being funded from my taxes; I see plenty of different family dynamics in my work (not all good, not all bad either) that makes this a better use in my mind than some of the unbelievable waste often displayed by both local and central government.

It's not about being too idle. It's about providing something that helps.

If it had been in place when things were tight for your family, that would have been better than you going without. It's good when things are better than they used to be.

Families that don't need it won't use it anyway.

I do think universal school lunches is a better idea, like they have in London, but you still have to make sure they are actually decent food. All of the children are in by then. DS' school actually banned packed lunches in reception and y1 but then there were loads of complaints and they allowed it by the time he was in Y2, then there were loads of issues with parents sending in junk 🤦🏼‍♀️

It's probably cheaper than means testing it

It's mainly the parents who aren't on benefits who have to go back to work earlier as those on UC aren't expected to until the child is three.

Unfortunately there's a lot of terrible parents who can't or don't feed their children enough. No child should be sitting hungry until lunch.

You do realise those working parents are paying for breakfast club and covering the cost of their toast slice don’t you? I spend £400 a month on wraparound care for my primary aged child and £1600 a month on nursery full time for my other child. Think that probably covers the 2p a slice if bread costs and the 1 minute of electricury and staff wages to run the toaster and butter the bread

My child's school has been doing it for about 1 year

It’s a bit of a lottery in the East Midlands - some schools offer it and some don’t

The school wraparound at most schools is 7:30-9am to help working parents - all good and breakfast given. Our school offer toast, with jam/ marmalade/ chocolate spread, beans or scrambled eggs, fruit, yogurts - no free offering and this is £8.50 per morning

For the schools in the areas that offer the free breakfasts some aren’t opening until 8:15am which is far too late for alot of working parents and they seem to be offering a brioche or filled pancakes (pre packed breakfast style stuff) so more a snack than a proper breakfast.

Its on the agenda at the next parents meeting in October so it’ll be interesting to see how they plan to do it but the wraparound is facilitated by an outside company at our school and ultimately they are going to want paying per child who is there as they are now, unless ofcourse it’s like “free school meals” and those kids receive it free and others pay, but I don’t think that’s how the idea is meant to happen?????

All primary school children from P1 to P5 get free school lunches in Scotland. A hot meal rather than some cereal.

Clearly varies school to school. At our local school they get wholemeal toast and Weetabix or cornflakes. Yoghurt and fresh fruit.

Empirically, it’s a much better use of money than free school lunches. There is reams of evidence that free breakfasts makes financial sense.

This is a VERY good point
our school uses a wraparound provider and there are also self employed childminders too (I use one) so what will happen to these businesses?
maybe there will be an opportunity for these wraparound companies to tender for the contracts??

But for childminders this could be terrible if people are paying every morning for childcare at a childminders but you could send them to school FREE then what are people going to do?????

Are you in a union

Junk food v scrambled eggs is better
Junk food v no food is better!

The evidence that early years investment brings the most benefit is pretty incontrovertible.

You can criticise the current govt for many things but this ain’t one of them:

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/free-breakfast-clubs-schools-what-labours-plans-would-mean-pupils-and-families

Yes, absolutely, there are implementation considerations, but at least the will and the actual engagement with evidence is there.

Parents should feed their children. We should not expect school to be a substitute parent. They need to focus on teaching.

Agree but there are a lot of useless, neglectful parents. This is a “simple” way the government can help. They should really be providing extra staff though and not expecting teachers to give up more time.

I think cost of living plays a oart as well. I got a top shop today. It was around 60.00 it didn't even fill one delivery crate.. in the past it would have filled around 3 crates.

There are people on very low income. People using food banks. So if free breakfast club helps them out . Feeds children then that's good.

It’s just transferring what should be the responsibility of the parents to the school. Again. Maybe spend the money educating parents on how to parent. If a parent has to be advised that their child needs feeding in a morning before school, then they shouldn’t be having children. Breakfast is not expensive for a child.

Even a 7hr working day is hard,
7hr is 9am-5pm 1hour lunch. If school doesn't open until 8.30 even for toast that's still only 30min commute time, which isn't a lot of time if your trying to use public transport or deal with traffic