Breakfast clubs - what does your school do?

[holleyshiftwell]

DD's school (we are in a city, 210 pupils) doesn't have a breakfast club at the moment. There are a number of families, including ours, who would find a breakfast club really helpful, and so we would like to talk to the Head about the possibility of setting one up. However we have been warned that the Head is not keen on the idea of providing a breakfast club - not sure why. The school does have an after school club, which is a run separately to the school but is staffed by some of the Teaching Assistants.
It would be really helpful to find out what the set-up is in other schools - what times a breakfast club operates, what it provides, costs, who staffs it, who is responsible for it - any information would be gratefully received!

Our primary has a breakfast club. It starts at 8am.
Children are offered choice of cereals, porridge, juice, toast, fruit.
It costs £2.50, and is staffed by 2 TA's.
At 8.40, the KS1 chilldren are taken to their classrooms. KS2 children go to the playground til the bell goes.
I don't know who is responsible for it i'm afraid. All my 4 yr old tells me is that the headmaster sometimes comes and eats soup! (porridge!)
Hope thats helpful!

Thanks GobHoblin, that's really helpful. Just wondering - do you have to book/pay for the breakfast club in advance, or is there a drop-in facility? At the after-school club at DDs school you can book the child in on the day (it is not oversubscribed), which seems odd to me!

Ours is free (Wales, so funded by the Assembly). It opens at 8, the children get offered toast or cereal (no sugar allowed on the cereal but jam is allowed on the toast ), and then they get taken to their classrooms. It's staffed by TAs. It's drop in, we don't have to book or stick to certain days. The children are expected to eat - dh dropped dd off one morning and said she wasn't hungry, he was told that breakfast club is officially to make sure they have a decent breakfast, it's not childcare, but of course that's what we all use it for! I think that it's actually quite sad that the Assembly came up with the initiative because some children arrive at school without being given a proper breakfast

Our school has 315 children. They run a breakfast club on a drop in basis or pay in advance. £2 a day. There are 2 lunchtime supervisors and the supervisor of the afterschool club (who is also the Chair of Governors) who run it. It offically is from 7.45 till 8.50 but children can be dropped at 7.30ish when they are still setting up. Every day there is toast, juice, cereals and yoghurts as well as fruit available. They do cooked breakfast like scrambled egg, pancakes, beans a couple of times a week. There are probably about 20 children that attend each day.

Free breakfast club

It is 'book' only i believe, i don't think theres a drop in option, certainly never seen or heard it mentioned. I just stick a cheque in an envelope and write the dates required, name and class on the outside. No booking forms. Though we did have an initial registration form. I often only book the afternoon previous, being so organised!

Our afterschool club needs to be booked the week before, but it has only been going since easter so is still 'evolving'!

DDs' school is starting one in September. Start at 7.45, £5 per morning per child. We are booking in advance as need it regularly for our jobs. The people running it already have a couple of other clubs at schools nearby, so they know whet they're doing (and I've received good recs from others already).

Thanks Amandine - yes, I was aware that originally breakfast clubs were set up to ensure all kids had a decent breakfast before starting their school day (love the idea of porridge as GobHoblin said!). Sadly I am sure there may well be some children in our area for whom this would be a good thing :( but at the moment the main driver here as far as I can see is to make life a little easier for working parents - the school gates don't open until 8:40 (or 8:45 some days if they are running late), and by the time you have settled your child into school (you are expected to accompany them into the class until year 5), getting anywhere for a 9am start is impossible.

Unlikely that drop in would work as there are legal adult to child ratios. We've had problems with people turning up un-booked and pushing us over our ratios. At 7.30 am it is hard to find additional adults to come in immediately to make us "legal".

At our school is is supervised by two TAs and additional staff, depending on numbers, but the responsibility lies with the head and the office staff manage the bookings, finances, staff recruitment, ordering food, CRB, etc. It does take several hours of school office time each week, so that needs to be factored into costs as well.

I can see why you have to book breakfast club in advance as parents would be cross to turn up and be not be able to leave their child if it is full and being first thing in the day you can't check easily first. After school club can be contacted all day to make on-the-day bookings and check availablity of space.

Thanks everyone, this is really helpful. I'm interested that in lots of cases it's the TAs who are running the breakfast clubs - do the same staff also do the afterschool clubs? One concern the Head has raised is that she feels a breakfast club would need to be run by school staff so they are adults that the children are familiar with, but she doesn't think the TAs who run the afterschool club would want to work such a long day and do the breakfast club too?

Footballfriend - is your breakfast club run by external providers then? Do they use their own staff or employ school staff?

Ours has a few extra helpers - I'm not sure if they're paid or volunteer though. I don't know if it's the same staff as after school club (which isn't free) as dd still only does mornings until September so I don't know how after school club works.

It hasn't started yet but my understanding is that it's external people. A couple of mums started something similar at their own children's school and since then they've started at other schools too, became more of a business. After school will be £11.50 till 6 pm, less if child doing a club in school and do joining later. I don't know staff yet as DDs haven't started st that school yet, so no grapevine or gossip, I don't know anyone, plus the club hasn't started yet either.

Our afterschool club is outside providers, but breakfast club mainly school TAs. I agree about the long hours; 7.30 - 8.45 breakfast club, full school day, often working through much of lunch and all of morning and afternoon playtimes, then 3.15 (or what ever time school ends) to 6pm (or 6.30pm?), additional time to set up breakfast club, clear up after school club, late collection by parents, time to prepare activities and resources for the clubs .... all makes very long working hours.
Don't forget breakfast club will need contingency plans for staff illnesses. A 6am phone call saying someone is ill does not negate the legal adult to child ratios. I'm sure the head teacher would not be pleased having to step into that gap at a moment's notice!

FWIW though I saw that the school had placed ads in various Internet sites to gather interest for running the clubs, so they must have been ok with completely outside providers. PM me for school details of you want.

Thanks Amandine and Footballfriendsays.

Hmm good point AbigailS yes had not thought about staff illness, especially in a relatively small school where it might be difficult to find someone to step into the gap at short notice.

I am wondering whether an external provider might be a good suggestion to make to the Head, that way it would take away some of the admin etc from the school? There are various after-school clubs run at leisure centres etc by different companies in our city, so perhaps one of them might consider it.