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.

quote from twotimes 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. quote from twotimes

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I think maybe the solution here is for schools to provide the breakfast and to have a facility whereby parents who want to, can make a voluntary contribution towards the cost. This could then be ploughed back into the breakfast club fund and deducted from the next tranche of exchequer funding provided. Obviously, some parents who can afford to pay just won't bother. But you will get mean people like that everywhere. Most parents, I imagine, will pay if they can afford to and what they can afford to.

OP - Do any impoverished, malnourished children at all benefit from the free breakfast offered at your school?

Does anyone know if you can use the childcare element of WTC to pay for breakfast and after school clubs or holiday clubs?

Gori good post. I think it is in part a defense mechanism: as long as the people who are vulnerable are the other then you're immune. Reality is, incredibly few people are immune but until you are in that palce you cannot understand the costs associted with it- clearly I don't mean those who make that choice, TBH I don't think they frewuent MN much anyway and it isn't usually overnight: but when something as random as illness or disability hit (even less predictable than redundancy) the associated costs are incredible- you'd need to have saved more than a small nest egg to cope with for example care bills of £600+ a week! And caring at hojme means eitehr claiming CA (£53 pw) or hiring someoone in.... and beleive me respite and funded care isn't going to cover it, very very few people get more than 10 hours a month the vast majority nothing or far less (we get nothing),

Unless you are so megarich you truly could absord costs in excess of five hundred a week or live on £53 until you retire, you may well need the welfare state. It didn't offer us much a year ago either (some non meanstested disability stuff only) but DH's employers were bought by a bank and stripped out in weeks, they'd won awards for productivity and all sorts but thee you go. Can happen to anyone.

Sokmething I will remind myself of in a few eyars hopefully when we are comp[letely independent and I see the tax money vanish and people seemingly carefree on no work, I will try and remember what my encounter with it really was like- godawful and more that a little bit shit.

NA I think you can yes, it would depne on their registration I guess.

I could certainly use my student childcare award to cover holiday club run by Uni when I was there.

Didn't know that FIo, how- odd.

"in issues of public policy I think 'Does it work?' and 'Do we want to do it?' are more appropriate questions than 'Is it fair?'"

Couldn't agree more, ooojimaflip.