OVER 300,000 children are set to get free breakfast clubs in April in “fantastic news” for parents that’ll save them £450 a year.
Schools already enrolled on the programme have served up seven million meals to date while giving parents up to 95 hours of precious time back each morning, the government has announced.
Children are benefitting from healthy breakfasts and being in school earlier, with evidence showing improved attendance, attainment and behaviour, the government added.
It is now calling on more primary schools to sign up with applications open for 1,500 schools to join in September, so that 680,000 children will benefit by September.
A most welcome move
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Free breakfast clubs are revolutionising morning routines up and down the country, becoming an essential part of modern-day life for working families.
“From settling a child into the school day to helping parents get to work, free breakfast clubs are giving every child the best start in life – delivering on our plan for national renewal.
“I was raised by a single parent, so I know first-hand the struggles facing parents trying to make ends meet and how important it is to tackle outdated stigmas with practical support that people can feel every day.”
Naina Clayton, Founder at Sandwoman Business Support, hailed the news and urged more schools to sign up.
She added: “This is fantastic news. In today’s climate where families are struggling to provide food to their children, this is a most welcome move.
“All schools who are eligible to sign up should and help provide the children with at least one decent meal a day. It is important to children that they are fed as breakfast is an important meal and means they are able to concentrate on learning.”
It benefits all children
Samuel Mather-Holgate, Managing Director & IFA at Swindon-based Mather and Murray Financial, said the Labour government has got this right.
He continued: “Despite the cacophony of bad news, this is another example of where the government are getting it right. They have prioritised health and education and they are moving at pace to improve the lives of children and families.
“Every school should be signing up for this initiative as it benefits all children, and there is a mountain of evidence that hungry children don’t fulfil their potential.”
Though Kundan Bhaduri, Entrepreneur at London-based The Kushman Group, said this doesn’t fix the root cause of the problem.
He added: “We are witnessing yet another nationalisation of parenting. By expanding the school day to include feeding time, the state is quietly accepting that the cost of living crisis, fuelled by their own high-tax, high-regulation policies has made the basic act of providing breakfast unaffordable for working families.
“Instead of fixing the root causes of poverty by allowing parents to keep more of what they earn, the government’s solution is to turn teachers into waiters and schools into food banks. Furthermore, where is the efficiency audit in all this? In the private sector, a breakfast rollout would be costed to the penny.
“In the public sector, this smells like another black hole of procurement where the cost of administration will likely dwarf the cost of the cereal. Schools are already crumbling and struggling to teach maths and English and we are now burdening them with the logistics of mass catering. We don’t need a ‘Nanny State’ buttering our crumpets, frankly.”
