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 have never heard of a school providing fruit and veggies to kids and I have friends with kids in about 20 different schools across my city. How lovely! I am sure that makes a huge difference to the children and I’d fully support that sort of initiative.

I think it’s horrifying that people want to punish the children for their parents’ life situation. Loads of people end up in bad situation due to bad luck or ill health or lack of education or opportunities. Some are lazy, sure, but that still has nothing to do with the children. Kids are innocents and I will never be sorry to spend my time feeding them. I volunteer at the food bank in my area once a month and it’s terribly, terribly sad.

Our school is a ‘mixed catchment’ so the breakfast club is both sides - children whose parents are off to work as well as children on free school meals who are refugees or foster children or any sort of other situation. They all play together before school and eat some toast and it’s all fine. My kids aren’t too good for a piece of white bread in the mornings and I’m glad that the inclusivity means that no one needs to think about if the kids are there because of logistics or need.

Would love to see them add a piece of fruit at snack time but not judging them for not being able to - we have kids in too small shoes and no winter coat, kids with terrible home lives, kids who don’t speak a word of English and just moved here from a war zone… there are a million priorities and I have no idea how I’d make those decisions if I was the head teacher.

I volunteer on the PTA and our entire ethos is about equity - all our fundraising is for the uniform bank or school supplies or paying for the kids to all go on a trip as so many parents can’t afford the £8 to go to the science centre or whatever. I almost never judge the parents and I absolutely never judge the kids. Am sure they’d rather be in a safe home with lots of food in the cupboards.

I’m in Scotland and I don’t know if it’s universal or not, but my kids’ primary school always had a free breakfast club. Pre-Covid there was cereal, toast, porridge, sliced melon, berries, bananas etc. After covid it went to just cereal or toast.

The high school has also had free breakfast but it is all provided for free by warbutons. So it’s just things like toast and bagels and stuff, with jams and butter. Staff have to be paid to prepare it in the morning so it’s still costing something I guess, but the high schoolers can just grab a bagel as they walk paste the entrance where it’s all set out like a mini buffet.

It’s popular in both the primary school and for the high school kids, so the food will be used.

I think this is less about financials and more about some parents. I went to a rough school where kids didn’t have breakfast because their parents were still in bed and nothing was in the house. My husband got given a chocolate bar on the way to school. I imagine it’s to combat that sort of thing! As much as I think it’s the parents responsibility, realistically many kids don’t get a breakfast or get an awful one and this helps that, so I support it.

I use it 5 days a week anyway paying for it

I pay 3£ to drop off at 745 every day!! Great if it was free obviously

but over all it’s not that much money to me so I’m quite happy to continue paying as well as I can afford it

its awful to think some kids are arriving at school for the day hungry though so I’d welcome it for all so everyone is fed

i doubt it would actually work helping kids from the type of home where the parents don’t get up to take them to school as the kid won’t even make it on time for the breakfast club at 8 - like who is going to make sure the child gets there

If you find yourself thinking "I'm not bothered about doing that" or "it seems like a waste of money." Then you actually need to be thinking, "Okay, I'm not the demographic it's being aimed at. I don't need this particular service."

My two children don't need it either, so don't attend. But for those children who do need it, it's such a great service. Anything that can help remove barriers to learning, and help children from disadvantaged backgrounds get a leg up, has to be worth celebrating.

Just because it's not something your children need, doesn't mean that there aren't children out there (and parents) who appreciate it every single day. I've said it time and time again, and will continue saying it until the day I die
CHILDREN CAN'T HELP BEING POOR.
Blame and criticize the parents all you want, but it's NOT the children's fault.

Personally, I think that nation that doesn't love and care for ALL its children, is a failing nation.

It’s their parents who are failing.

I agree.

I wish there were more posts like this. There are a few in this thread. But they don't outweigh the judgement or lack of understanding sadly.

I am merely stating a fact. 'Kids' do not 'need milk'.

As I've said, if a child is starving it is better than nothing.
But to say that kids need to drink something produced by bovines, is madness.

My daughter is in her mid 20s and even when she was in primary school our school district provided free breakfasts to all students who wished to partake, so it's been in place at least 20 years. The amount it increases our taxes by is minute. The effect it has on a handful of students is enormous. I think it is a great use of resources.

if this is true it’s appalling.

if the government isn’t able to willing to provide healthy food then it needs to keep out of nutrition entirely.

poor kids.

It is true - but I personally just need the cheap childcare for them as I need to be at work at 8.30 so no choice

but it’s a few breakfasts of cereal Or toast and jam and juice in the week and she’s still getting a decent dinner in the evening so I don’t worry too much about it 🤷‍♀️

she has a banana or a bit of yogurt on route as well

So what would you like them to eat? Toast and cereal is cheap. And easy to serve.

Schools don’t have the budget to provide catering staff early in the morning.

As it is, a lot of teachers and TAs are unhappy as they will be roped into doing it for free. Schools aren’t going to employ extra staff to cover the breakfast clubs. What about those teachers who have children who will have to get to work even earlier?

Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve always been a stay at home mum. My children, if they want to have breakfast (two have never eaten breakfast, one is an adult now and still doesn’t), don’t want to eat much more than a bowl of cereal.

my 12 year old has to be on the road at 7:30 am to get to school - she says the last thing she would want is anything more than a slice of toast at that time of morning.

No. Parents should feed their own children. We did it years ago, rich or poor. 🙄

No one ever said such a thing. You are just making up a spurious argument.

Ok so you breastfed your kids until they were 10. Then put them onto soya milk and a vegan diet. That is not the demographic that this is aimed at.

I had school milk as a child. Health visitors recommend milk. It is high in vitamins, calcium and iron. Just because you have a thing about cows, it doesn't alter facts. Some children in the uk suffer from rickets. Milk would help to prevent this.

Please enlighten us to what kids should be consuming at breakfast club. I think the variety of opinions on this thread mean that the scheme is doomed to failure.

Actually loads didn’t. Just like today. We just didn’t think those kids deserved better. My grandmother was a school guidance counsellor in the 1960s and there were plenty of hungry kids she fed out of her own pay.

Do you really think that the parents who aren't feeding their children are likely to take them extra early to school? If it was really about feeding undernourished children, schools would be providing a nourishing snack later in the morning, not before school starts.

What next? Schools expected to potty train, teach teeth brushing and how to use a knife and fork. Oh...wait!

And if they don't. ??
What then ?
Children should go hungry ?

Agree.

The people who are likely to benefit are those less in need who will be able to take advantage of not having to pay for breakfast club when they usually would.

I think a lot of people are assuming this will be a breakfast club type provision.

more likely it will be done during early morning activities/registration time, or like a previous poster mentioned with the free bagels done on the playground before school.

At the school where I live now, and my younger children go to, I can guarantee that the people some think this is aimed at - the ones who can’t be arsed to get out of bed and make a bowl of cereal - would not bring their children in any earlier for a breakfast club type thing.

It was me who mentioned the bagels on the playground. That works really well at our school. It’s not just for the children, it’s for siblings and parents too. Everyone who asks is handed one and parents are encouraged to take any surplus bags of bagels from the reception area at the end of each week.

But the school have such huge problems with attendance and punctuality anyway. It’s not like people have to travel, the majority of children are local. If they can’t get them into school and fed by 9am, they aren’t going to have them up and ready for 8am.

And there just aren’t enough working families where I am for there to be a need for provision for parents to drop earlier to get to work.

(I know a lot about the school as I volunteer as the parent peer co ordinator and go in to meetings with the parents for attendance and things if they want me too, I used to previously work as welfare/attendance myself so I can explain how things go to them and some parents find that helpful. I know ^^ sounds a bit judgy but I’m not, I’m just telling it how it happens in the area I live).

Kids don't "need milk" - nobody does. Milk is infant food and there's nothing natural or even particularly healthy about drinking the infant food of another species or drinking any kind of infant food when you're no longer an infant. (I do, and I like it, but I know it's no more essential than the gin that I also like). In global terms, it's more common to be lactose intolerant than not. Asian kids aren't all guzzling milk. Milk is basically drops of fat suspended in water. And a bit of calcium and protein and so on, yes, but nothing that isn't available in lots of other foods. (A Korean would tell you kids "need" kimchi). Kids need nutrients, of various kinds; there's no one essential way to deliver them. (And some kids get so used to filling up on the fat-water that they don't eat enough real food).

Yes, of course parents should be feeding their kids. But free school food programmes are there to benefit the poor defenceless kids whose parents don't. And maybe increase, just slightly, their chances of getting a decent education and escaping the awful situation they were born to. It's not about making life easier for the parents. It's to help the kids.

Yep. Do people really think it's a coincidence that compulsory education followed in the wake of industrialization?

A lovely reminder of the time an absolute dick of a colleague was fired for sending us all an email calling us morans. I won't stop relishing the memory if I live to be a hundred.

And screw the unfortunate kids whose parents are too poor, busy, uneducated, in poor mental health or addicted to provide them a nutritious breakfast!