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.

And yes I agree she shouldn't have ahd ehr children (and many like her) but when SSD have said no there is no otehr solution than to play the puzzle game of finding MS resources to do a best match.

Are people critici9sing me WRT to vodka woman? (I am crap at reading between lines so not sure if it is me or SASD / society being negatively commented upon here)

COz I did all tehr eferrals and meetings in every case, I am a hrd birtch in RL when I think a child is at risk but a brick wall is a brick wall.

FIo its supposed to be purewly based on risk levels, trouble is fsoter / childrens homes is a risk too (they're not all good) so it becomes a game of playing the balances, and arguing with people far less willing to intervene than otehrs, esp. if it hits their budget

Each case is assessed on its own merit, FioFio

Peachy I think you maybe in the minority, I wasn't going to post because it's bound to upset somebody, but I do think pride has gone out the window and been replaced by a sense of entitlement.
My next door neighbour had 8 children, never took a penny off the state, her husband was a rag and bone man.
Even stitched her eldest two boys head herself because she'd seen the doctor twice that week already and felt she'd had her allocation of his time.
But seriously she went without for her kids, you don't see much of that these days, working or on benefits.

Oh and I do chuckle that my 4th babe will be the only one to have a new pram because we're getting a benefits grant instead of having two working parents, oh the irony.

That's good FIo, I do feel badabout some cases I 'failed' at even now years later.

I don't think it can possibly cost more to means test, otherwise they would just make all school meals free.

It wouldn't be hard to charge, except for children who get free school meals, not really extra admin at all. Personally I would expect a nominal charge for the child care too, not just the breakfast. Why should rich people get child care paid for by the taxes of the poor?

Stretching the definition of "rich" there a bit I think SomeGuy, our school charges 8quid (I don't have a pound sign) for morning club, which is fine because this is a rich school and if you are using it you are paying for the hour's childcare rather than the breakfast.

I just can't find it in me to begrudge feeding some kids who maybe don't need it, in order to cover the kids who do. Who thinks like that?

So the idea of these breakfast clubs is to make sure children have breakfast before they start school.

But why aren´t children having breakfast-because there´s no breakfast at home or no time to have it?

swan I dont think you understood my point, I literally meant why shouldn't other people benefit from it. Saying there is limited money is well it doesn't make sense. There is always just a limited amount of money so what should we say, if you can afford it you must pay for schooling? you must pay for healthcare if you earn over a certain amount. I do agree that the scheme isn't thought out well and should be put to better use. I think it should be rolled out across the board as it would hit two birds with one stone. If they made all school breakfast clubs free, then they would have to pay out less in childcare allowance no?

I didn't just absent-mindedly throw income around for the sake of it or for sympathy (although I could do with some lol) my point was, how will it be decided who has too much money to qualify? At present combined we earned too much for childcare costs, my point was that the whole childcare tax credit system is a mess (but I do think I was going slightly of topic ). But that's quite a typical wage for unskilled workers (good job i'm going back to uni) so the fact that probably many working parents would use this scheme, should it mean that they would suddenly not be able to? I absolutely wasn't trying to say posters are begrudging people a free breakfast, I actually do feed my kids but can imagine the whole mess when my dc's come home and start whinging "I want to eat breakfast with my friends at school"

It's easy to say oh its only £2 morning, but if you have 2 dc's that's £20 a week, plus lunch. I just think instead of rolling it out for people who don't get proper breakfasts (which seriously how can they tell). I know someone who was literally living off a £20 food budget per week, and she managed to feed her dc an adequate breakfast every morning. As somebody else has pointed out, those who can't be bothered to feed their children in the morning are going to be unlikely to haul themselves out of the house an hour earlier for breakfast club.

Well, I´ll probably get flamed but if it´s because parents have no time/can´t be bothered, how is feeding the children for them helping the problem?

I find these threads really hard, as I can completely understand the frustration of those who have never had hard times/never encountered the truly despicable state that some of our children are in (I fall in solely the latter category so I speak from only half experience) but equally I cannot help but think that this 'welfare state' is all that is keeping some children from utter neglect and starvation. I get as cross as any at times, but more out of a lack of understanding of how one human being could be so wilfully or neglectfully cruel to their own offspring.

As such, the blase discussion about pulling funds because some poor excuses for parents will use it to buy vodka and how it is our tax money, yadda yadda, better than thou grates on me. If you had seen some of the kids I have coming through my classroom door (or not as the case may be) it would be so much harder to dismiss them so easily. In fact it doesn't just grate sometimes it actually hurts, because how can we turn our backs on the less fortunate because we don't think it's fair?

We have kids whose clothes are not washed, they don't get deoderant or shower gel and they don't have the money to use a launderette...their parents don't call that sort of thing important but how do you explain that to a child when they are picked on relentlessly cause they smell? That in itself is not enough for SS to take them away, so who does what? Teachers and others chip in and buy a couple of extra shirts and perhaps a pair of shoes without holes and do the child's washing with their own to try to prevent the cruelty of other teenagers. I am all for school initiatives if anything can help to alleviate this sort of thing. These will generally be the kids who also eat in the classrooms with the teachers first thing because they don't get fed, this and their free school meal is often all they get.

Every Child Matters was brought in after huge public outcry after numerous so called SS screw-ups, these school initiatives are all about trying to keep vulnerable children safe.

I'm ranting in general and not necessarily at posters here before people get defensive, it just sometimes makes me a little sad.

Sorry, that was long!

I think that was the OP's point MRSC2010 that those using the breakfast clubs who can pay £2 should do because they are taking resources away from the children you describe.

I don't think the people this is meant to target will benefit from it. But maybe they should just have a donation box at the door, that way, anyone who wants to donate can do.

oh my word - a breakfast club and it's free
we had no such facility in our area when i needed one for dc.
do you know how lucky you are???????????

Maristella - I do know how lucky I am. I don't know how I'd manage if we didn't have a breakfast club. Which is why I think it is essential to make it financially sustainable and to save the funded places for those who really need it!

UCM, it can be really hard to keep a club open just through parents paying. It is also expensive. I used to pay £75 a week for my 2 to attend school breakfast club, and the club was constantly threatening to close down.

And you can bet your butt if it started being self funding, the funding would then be withdrawn and we would be back in the position of people who need to use it (for whatever reason) not being able to if they can't afford it.

diddl depends on no time doesn't it?

As of next year I will have four kids in four setings- 2 different SNU's at other ends of the city, a local primary and a different primary nursery class (all kids here get a free nursery class year).

I always feed my children, of course I do, but if there was another way I might really benefit from it.

Plus ds1 as I said before ahs AS and an eating disorder: ATM I am failing to get him to eat before noon, but peer pressure as at the noon meal might help, it'd be nice to try.

ATM where ds1 and ds2 are over the road school wise, ds3 is picked up by Sn transport and ds4 at home i'd be seriously taking the piss to even complainabout time and I don't, next year will be a case of Extreme Mornings though. DH leaves at 8, so no help there either.

I think whatever the reason is the child has not had breakfast at home (desorganised parents, poverty...and all other reasons stated) ultimatly, NONE of the reasons are the childs fault so why should they be punished because circumstances arround them are less than favourable? I think breakfast clubs are there for THEM to have at least a good start of the day if nothing else and depriving them from it because their parents cannot afford/can be bothered is not human. I hope those breakfast clubs will last and yes I hope they will carry on being free for those who need them to be free.

I think a lot of posters against a bit of welfare help do not realise that for some people, the financial situation can change from a day to the other due to redundency/ill health...

I have yet never needed to live on benefits and hope I will not have too because I do not actually thing living on benefits is a choice but because I do not need help does not mean that nobody else does.