Free breakfast clubs

[whatcanthematterbe81]

Whilst this is brilliant for families, my buinesss is a breakfast club. We're in the midlands and take £5000 per month, more than half of that goes on costs and I live on the rest.

Gutted, surely my business is going to close. What would anyone pay me for something they can get for free at school. Not sure why I'm posting. Advice maybe?

Sorry not the point of your post but how does that work? Do you do it in a school, a community centre or your home? Are the kids from one school or different schools?

I rent a space and it's close to a few schools. My staff walk them to school

What hours do you operate? My guess is you're open earlier than many school breakfast clubs, so you may still have a market?

@Sunplanner I start at 730. I'm hoping the fact the kids love it will help but it's just a lot of them come every day so parents would save a lot of money a month by not coming. I know I would personally prefer a free option.

Perhaps one of the schools could hire you to run their breakfast club?

Where have you got the free breakfast club thing from? It'll never happen. Would cost an absolute fortune in funding.

I did think about that but the money would be terrible. It's just a few hours work of on a salary/hourly rate you see. It's def worth contacting them tho to see what's feasible. I normally work 7-9 (prep breakfast, have them all then help with the school runs) then I have my babies (twin 1 year olds) for the rest of the day. It's been a perfect little set up. Thank you so much for replying by the way. I'm having an insomnia night so it's nice to get it out :-)

I mean, it's saying April 2025 so that's not far off and is definitely in the making. My friends school is going to be part of the pilot which is in January I think

Money coming from tax raids. As per their pledge anyway. It seems if there's such a close date that it's happening but yeah, I guess stranger things have happened than governments lying haha

Who would be eligible?

Literally everyone

I think it depends on the start times. My son’s school starts breakfast club at 8 and school opens at 8:30. It’s only 50p but if it started at little earlier than would give more flexibility for getting to work on time likes yours does. So some parents that drop off at 7:30 may continue

Someone's going to have to operate these clubs. The schools don't have the staff, etc.

Have you got a good relationship with the local schools?

As PPs have said, someone has to run them, if they happen at all. I can imagine schools outsourcing this to experienced local providers.
Get talking to the business managers of local schools.

Thank you. Hope so

I do have a good relationship with them, I think they rate me as they recommend me to parents so it's certainly worth a chat :-)

Thank you. Just needed calming down. I appreciate you replying

I think it’s a proposal that is not going to be workable for a long time and the devil will be in the detail. If you offer a good reliable service I think people will continue to use you especially if your food is nice.

No doubt the government will give schools a very low budget to implement and they’ll struggle to staff it or provide more than a bowl of the cheapest cereal.

See this as an opportunity rather than a threat. You are an expert in the field and it’s going to grow. Maybe the free club hours can be used at your service but can be topped up for an earlier start etc. There’s potential here for you to expand into other schools etc

I wouldn't worry too much about it, rather it provides a perfect opportunity if you're willing to step up and take a few risks by approaching your current school(s) and enquiring about providing a professional service. You'll likely have to get some tests/certificates but this could be a really great development for you.

Alternatively (if you choose to just bury your head in the sand and worry) then your current customers are unlikely to want to move away from you to an overly busy and impersonal provision at school, especially if it's not as convenient.

The difficulty is that, as far as we know yet, they aren't proposing to means test it. If I was your customer and my child's school were offering it for free, then I'm sorry but I'd definitely swap to the school (they know it and there's no transfer). As everyone says I think your best bet is pivoting to provide it fir the school - although I suspect the funding may not make that viable.

As someone who works in a school, I do wonder how these breakfast clubs are going to work and who's financing it and staffing it.

Will the government except school staff to start earlier to man these and if so where's this money coming from? Do school staff want to start earlier - I don't think so, how and when do we then prep for the morning! Meaning greater workload!

Is it going to be tenured out to big companies and therefore costing more to the tax payer! The devil is absolutely in the detail- to which there hasn't been any.

This could be either an Opportunity or a Threat, so it's worth preparing for both. Being optimistic, it's quite likely the schools won't want the hassle - but if this was to apply to every pupil from each of those schools, could you cope? Could you scale up?

Work out your costs per pupil with a breakdown of where those costs go. Be ready in case you're asked to tender. Also, keep an eye out for a tender being published.

@DogInATent yes I have all my budget, business plan, p&l, be analysis etc that can be tweaked to fit their budget, numbers, suppliers, etc I manage that side quite well as I had to when i worked in project management previously. Regarding if I could cope. I don't know, probably (maybe) but realistically I'm not sure if I would want the extra admin and responsibility. I've loved running my little club as it is I guess I'm just open to discussions if it comes to it but also realistic in the view it's potentially not for me, or my club

They say in their manifesto that the money is coming from clamping down on tax evasion and I think it also mentioned the vat private school thing, like the money comes from there too.