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.

I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t to provide their kids with food, it’s the childcare element.

School isn't childcare

Ha this is such a Mumsnet trope and it’s just bullshit. Of course it’s childcare.

This is actually a really good point. Some mid morning carbs (none of this fruit bullshit, and apple won't fill a kid up) is a great compromise. But as previous posters have noted, I think part of this is about freeing up parents to get to work.

Absolutely agree. My children go to a childminder in the morning for 45minutes before school so I can get to work on time. A school breakfast club would really help me. I'm a single parent too.

It's absolutely this. If breakfast club is free for all primary school age pupils you completely get around the "I can't start until 9" issue that is a barrier to mum's going back into the workforce. Instead UC argue, they can go to breakfast club. Hence you can now start at 8/ 8.30.

I'll be honest, I would like to see the removal of some of the cliff edge benefits like FSM and 30 hours funding for WORKING parents. I know so many families (especially women) who are not going for promotions/ not going back full time/ shoving money into salary sacrifice ect in order to keep under that 100k for the 30hours. If 30 free hours was universal there would be more tax money as people with nursery age children would not be turning down promotions. Universal FSM would remove school meals stigma. It would also relieve pressure of household budgets who are packing children up for school. Just because parents earn well, does not mean they are fed well.

Some people have to get up early and race to work.

Im sorry but wtf is up with these comments? Parents waking up at the crack of dawn to take their children to breakfast club are doing so out of need. They’re the last people to be lazy.

I WFH 4 days a week and I can see this, why is this so hard for some of you to understand??

I understand why people don't want school to be childcare, but we have a system where it absolutely functions as that. To that end, I agree this is as much about that childcare aspect of schooling as anything else. Trying to reduce one of the barriers to parental employment.

Worth pointing out that this is happening in the context of childminder numbers contracting, meaning parents may not have access to other options. Also the numbers wanting other forms of wraparound are going to be dropping just because of birth cohort numbers, so other provision may get less viable.

The point is that everyone who sends their kids to school for their breakfast is being lumped together in this thread as lazy and refusing to prioritise the needs of their children.

There are plenty of kids (like mine) who get “free” breakfast because they are entitled to it but during breakfast club which is an activity costing me £100s per month.

So I disagree that all children who eat breakfast at school come from households with lazy parents who can’t afford a loaf of bread and, actually, it’s likely because of those paying parents that a lot of other kids are fed for free.

Of course parents who just don’t bother to feed their kids are abhorrent but this thread is suggesting it’s negligent parenting not to have given some home cooked and well balanced dieticians’ dream breakfast every morning for any reason at all and there are plenty of good reasons why that’s not practical for families that certainly don’t require social services intervention!

Dumbing*

Oh the irony 😂

What do you expect parents to do if they have to work full time to make sure they can feed and clothe their kids and keep a roof over their heads?

Not everyone can have a job that’s 9-3 Monday to Friday and wraparound care is absolutely essential. Also, they don’t sit and learn during that time, they often play outside or do crafts or whatever so it’s only the sorts of things they’d be doing at home.

Makes me so angry that some people think working full time and using childcare options is somehow abusive. You should see the state my kids would be in if I (single mother) could only work part time or not at all.

@rathersleepy

Agreed because we enable it.

Can't be arsed to work? Here have a house and truckloads of cash. In fact, have some more kids and we'll give you even more!

Not feeding your child? It's ok, we'll do it. You concentrate on other stuff.

The incentives are the total opposite of what they need to be for things to change.

Sigh! 🙄

That is true, but neglectful/incapable parents unfortunately DO have children. The government can't stop them doing that. If we removed every child whose parents were incapable (or couldn't be bothered!) taking care of them properly, where would we put all these children? Who'd have them? Bring back orphanages/workhouses? Educating someone whose drug habit or criminal activity or relationship is more important than their children (to them) does nothing. Educating someone with the IQ of an amoeba also does nothing.

I hope this is satire.

Children do not need (cows) milk. I am not saying (before I get jumped on) that feeding a child who's otherwise starving a bottle of milk isn't better than nothing, but let's not perpetuate a dairy-industry funded myth.

I think people have massively missed the point. The free breakfast clubs aren’t to feed the kids of feckless parents who otherwise wouldn’t, they’re to provide free wraparound care for working parents who currently pay for it. At least that is my interpretation. I’m grateful for it as a full time worker who isn’t eligible for any benefits. It’s literally the only labour policy we benefit directly from.

Anyone who thinks school isn’t a form of childcare is frankly delusional, of course it is. That’s why “keyworker” children still went in during lockdown.

My children’s school have been in partnership with a charity called “magic breakfast” for some years now.

The school get free bagels and have a rota of two staff to have them out on the playground on a hot tray at morning drop off for everyone to have.

They don’t do a breakfast drop off club though as they has never had much interest from parents when they floated the idea in the past. It’s a very deprived area (57 % of school on FSM), and to be honest, not enough families work to make before or after school care viable. It’s also quite a cheap place to live, so many people who work just have one parent working and one at home, like we do.

I wish some of you could come to the area I live and see how some families survive.

Breakfast table? Some families at our school are in temporary accommodation and don’t even have kitchens.

And also some parents are just shit. The majority of children who go to our school live in a very small area. Lateness and attendance is abysmal, even for the children who live on the same road. Parents drag them in stinking of weed at 10am without the grace to even look embarrassed.

Then there are the parents who were brought up like that themselves, and just think it’s normal to carry it on with their own children.

ETA, I didn’t always live here. I used to live, and work, as a school welfare and attendance officer in a very affluent area of west London. The parents were just as bad there, I was always having to have meetings with one very prominent MP and a famous TV writer about their children’s lateness and poor attendance, they couldn’t get it together either, along with many other very middle class parents. So I’ve seen shit parents at both ends of the spectrum.

Life is complex and it’s easy to pass judgement when you don’t know the deeper things going on in any family. If providing a free bagel means a child is starting the day with food in their stomach then great!

I probably wouldn't go for free but a possible small amount of funding would be good. When my Mum was a headteacher she ran a breakfast club for children whose parents needed to drop them off earlier so they could go to work, she provided cereal, milk, fruit and juice but it was all out of her own pocket. She also kept a fully stocked fruit bowl in her classroom for the children who weren't provided with a snack but again she had to pay for it herself. She always said it broke her heart to see the children who turned up to school dirty and hungry, but there was only so much she could do to make sure they had something to eat while in her care.

This is why mid morning snack and milk would be a good idea. Snack could be toast or cookie. Kids often don't want early morning food but feel peckish mid morning.

But not sure how it fits with the healthy eating stasi.

I think a lot of schools do fruit snacks, especially for key stage 1.

Every school my three children have been to (my eldest is 23, youngest is 6), and every primary I’ve wprked in have provided fruit/veg snacks.

My youngest child’s school provided apples, bananas, carrots, crackers and cartons of milk. Milk is only for key stage one, but all years get fruit and veg in the classroom.

My 6 year old will not, and has never eaten breakfast, even as a baby. So she has a piece of fruit at break time.

An increasingly bonkers thread. Let's drag cows into the equation. Bonkers.

I never mentioned cows. Let the middle class fannys drink soya milk for their free breakfast.

My doctor told me, when I was very ill and couldn't eat, to drink milk. He said it contained all the nutrition I needed. Obviously, my doctor didn't know what he was talking about.

This