to think that breakfast clubs shouldn't be free?

[Undercovamutha]

I have just found our that our local school's breakfast club is free of charge. Apparently this is due to an initiative that is designed to ensure that children (especially those from low income families) eat healthily at breakfast time, and learn that breakfast is an extremely important meal.

I totally agree with this BUT my DD is not from a low income family (although we are by no means wealthy), and the reason we will need the breakfast club is due to work/school start times being difficult to manage. When I was asking the school about how the breakfast club works, they admitted that ALL the parents who send their children to the club do so for the same reason as I will be. Therefore, it is not doing what the funding is there for.

Now I DO NOT want the breakfast club to close as it is essential to me and many others, but surely it should be acknowledged why it is actually in existance - which is not to ensure low income kids eat well, but to ensure that working parents can drop their kids off at 8!

Whilst I haven't exactly got pots of money to spare, I certainly wouldn't mind at the very least paying the cost of the breakfast.

I think there's a few different discussions going on here.

One of the central issues seems to be whether free breakfasts should go only to those who cannot afford it or to all those who need it.

Another issue seems to be whether 'need' should be broadened out to cover children of working parents on reasonable or good incomes who have to drop children off early, or just children whose parents are inadequate in some way and would send them to school with no breakfast if the clubs didn't exist.

A third issue then seems to be whether parents who are inadequate but can afford to provide breakfast should be supported by the state or made to look after their kids properly.

Poshpaws - you have not misunderstood me [simle].

However, as is the nature with AIBU (I can take it - honest ), I have been badged as a snob who doesn't want my children mixing with 'commoners', and who wants low income families to suffer. This couldn't be further from the truth. We are not a well-off family, but I have always had to pay for childcare, and I don't see a problem with continuing to do so. I can't see how saying that I don't want to take money away from those who really need it, equates to me having a pop at low income families.

Am I the only one who thinks this is very trivial!

Kids are getting breakfast and Im for one are happy about this, the UK DOES have children on the poverty line, some children only get their school dinner as their meal for the WHOLE DAY! so I am thankful that said children will get a extra meal for the day!

another example of parenting by proxy. If this is such a major issue throughout the uk - i.e. if there are thousands upon thousands of children not eating breakfast becuase their parents can't be fucked to buy cereal and milk - then by golly tiz not breakfast clubs we need. we need a complete cultural overhaul. and this should be done by investment on parenting classes which should be compulsory on reciept of child benefit.

now whilst i suspect that there are some children who indeed do live these terible lives, i will venture to say that most parents are at least adequate enough to tell their 5 year old to pop some toast in the toaster.

i think this is another non issue - like fucking bastard lunch boxes and no chocolate biscuit allowed for lunch

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MY SIL told me yesterday that when her son goes to middle school he is only allowed to drink water - not juice, not sugar free juice.

now whilst my kids were fine with corporation pop - i think its fucking madness to deny children a drink if they won't drink water.

its all gone knob tastic

someones making some money or high flying career move out of this pile of utter complete wankage

i dont think the offer of free breakfast is for filling little tummies as such,more to do with getting brains to work more effectively,therefore better marks for the school?? and child does better long term too

as with the computer grant.....its so the child can access computers to aid better learning....for long term results for child and school....not for parents to obtain a freebie

children in poverty get benefits. if your working poor - you can afford bread.

i've been totally skint on the bones of mi arse looking for change down the settee kinda broke - wkids always had breakfast - and i wasn't the best mum in the world either.

Breakfast Club is not free in our school. Dd1 would kill to go, but @ £1.50 per day, it is not reasonably affordable to us, when I can make her porridge at home for a fraction of the cost.

Now £1.50 for an hours childcare and free breakfast is not a bad price, but I do it is something that should be means tested.

Custardo, dd1 is only allowed water at her school, in the classroom. At lunch they can drink whatever, but 'parents are urged to provide healthy lunches and advice leaflets are available upon request'. Dd1 is not keen on water and rarely drinks it, so we get around this rule by buying flavoured water. Apparently the rule isn't there because of healthy eating, it is so that children whose parents won't allow them juice don't get jelouse. Surely a better way of adressing this would be to ask that drinks are provided in coloured drinks flasks, so you cannot tell what is inside them?

I'm having trouble getting a handle on this thread...

People are objecting to children having a free breakfast?

Children at my school (it's a PRU) never arrived before 11, if at all, before breakfast club was introduced. It also stops them buying red bull and cookies for breakfast at the shop on the way in.

not free though is it?

I am not sure who the free breakfasts would be aimed at tbh.

If it is aimed at the children who do not get fed, well if families who do not feed their young children breakfast at home, how are they going to get up half an hour earlier to take the kids to school to get free breakfast. People who are feckless and do not feed their kids are generally the people who are feckless and will not get up in the morning.

Everyone can afford breakfast for their children. I have been as skint as can be and have always been able to afford porridge or cereal.

So am not sure why trhe free breakfast provision is there, however I would welcome it tbh.

No one is objecting to children- having a free breakfast. Some of us are querying whether it would be a better use of taxpayers' money to limit the scheme to children in need of a free breakfast in order that there is money left over to help other children in need.

It's aimed at the working poor. Those people whose wages are so low that the gov needs to top them up with tax credits in order to make them liveable.

You do not have to be unemployed to be poor.

Right. What a terrible waste of taxpayer's money.

And I thought it all went on benefits an council housing.

If it is aimed at the working poor as you suggest Amber, then surely the working poor benefit more from the hour of childcare, as opposed to the free breakfast. So why don't the government call it what it is: childcare for working parents! Then charge people who can afford it, and offer it free for those who can't.

*and

Im sorry but some of your comment is very naive in thinking that children in poverty get benefits! for one they dont get benefits their parents/guardian do, the children do not!

Ive seen countless time in my job what poverty does to children, and families.

sometimes parents make the wrong choices in life and its their children who suffer ultimately.

Some families cannot afford gas and electricity, so no porridge for them, milk going off as it cannot be refrigerated, etc... the list goes on, all you have to do is google poverty in the UK to see that we have over 13.5 million people in poverty and living below the weekly finance threshold, even more so that everything has gone up in price and wages/benefits staying the same.

I really do think it is very naive in thinking that just because you managed to accumulate money for basic needs that everybody else can do also, unfortunately the word does not work like this.

I'd say that they benefit from both the free breakfast and the childcare.

Means testing doesn't work am afraid.

Right. What a terrible waste of taxpayer's money.

And I thought it all went on benefits an council housing.

Not with you. A point being made is that including children of comfortably off parents in the scheme is not an optimum use of taxpayers' money when there are so many other areas where it is needed. Obviously, if there was plenty of tax sloshing around looking for a home, no one would grudge using it to feed every and any child, regardless of actual need. But that just isn't the case.

Are you sure it's not the case, swan? We are one of the world's richest nations. If we have such a small amount of money to spend on schools, childcare etc, shouldn't we be questioning why that is so?

Undercovamutha, what about maybe donate some money to the organisation that provides the service (not sure if it is the school or not)? This way you can still feel like yo are paying your way (I think it is a commendable thing to want to TBH) and the scheme would still be free for the ones who really need it to be free.

Whatever the reason, tethersend, if there was loads to go around there wouldn't be 'Children in Need', Hospital fundraisers etc which, in my view (and you are free to differ, obviously) are the kind of areas where available tax should be going, not on feeding the children of parents who are in a position to, and even -want- to in some cases, pay their way.

Not free at my DS's school either but £2 a session which is not bad for an hour of childcare AND breakfast.

I kind of agree with you swanandduck, particularly wrt 'Children in Need'- but I would ask why there are any children in need in one of the richest countries in the developed world?

I think 'Whatever the reason' is too accepting of the status quo.

I think I may be pulling the thread off at a tangent though

FioFio, perhaps they just have crap parents.