From April, up to 750 early adopter sites will be funded to provide breakfast clubs, ahead of an England-wide expansion. Participating schools will be expected to deliver a free breakfast and “at least 30 minutes of free before school childcare” daily.
The move follows thinktank the Education Policy Institute calling on the government to prioritise tackling food poverty in the early years, as well as considering automatic enrolment for free school meals amid 4.2 million children living below the poverty line.
Lessons from the early adopter sites will shape the national rollout once the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is approved by parliament, however some schools have criticised the scheme for not providing sufficient funding.
The measures have been welcomed by charity Magic Breakfast, which has campaigned for all children to have access to a free breakfast club for more than 20 years and delivers services for more than 1,000 schools. With the bill being a significant step forward in achieving this, chief executive Lindsey MacDonald says the emphasis must be on ensuring provision is high quality across England.
What is a breakfast club?
We're hearing a lot of different interpretations currently through the reading of the bill. The traditional breakfast club is opening the doors before the school gates, providing a combination of breakfast food and childcare support, enrichment activities – it's a safe space for children to be before the school day starts. In the minds of schools and educators, breakfast club tends to take place in a hall or multi-purpose room in a school; it's not something they expect to see in a classroom.
How many schools provide a club now?
In our 2022 Hidden Hunger report, we mapped provision across the UK finding that 85% of primary schools and 73% of special schools offered breakfast provision, such as a traditional breakfast club. However, only 33% of those schools provided it without barriers or stigma. That means that there would have been a charge or eligibility requirements, or, for a free booking you need to be on the list weeks in advance. There's no flexibility for a chaotic morning or an “on the day” requirement. So, there's lots of provision in place, but it's more about operationalising it without barriers and stigma.
What type of provision works best?
We have our highest level of uptake in schools where breakfast is provided slightly before the school bell, allowing that soft start to the day. It gives the opportunity to build pupils' social and soft skills, where somebody's in charge of serving one day, while another tidies up. I was at a school recently where they had a team of breakfast monitors strategically chosen because they might otherwise be late arriving for school. They are now responsible for delivering the bagels and porridge to every classroom ahead of the school day starting so none of their classmates go hungry.
Does this approach fit the model of a breakfast club set out in the bill?
A crucial thing for us in terms of the opportunity and feasibility of this bill is [adopting] mixed models. If it remains the way that it's [currently] written – the traditional breakfast club model – then I think schools will struggle, because they won't be able to imagine something beyond that and the budgets will struggle, because when you've got all the pupils in one space staffing ratios are well beyond what's been budgeted for.
Is that why some have decided against participating in the early adopter scheme?
The trial is an opportunity to test breakfast provision at scale, across a broad cross section of types of schools in communities across England. We are calling for a variety of models to be encouraged, to ensure every school is able to innovate and adapt to their context to manage costs and reach the pupils who arrive at school hungry. The models can include classroom provision, grab ‘n’ go, nurture groups and provision for late arrivals. The benefits of school breakfasts are well evidenced and the early adopters scheme must be used to test and learn how to realise these in schools across England.
Will funding or logistics be the biggest barrier to delivering the scheme well?
We work with schools who have high proportions of pupils who face disadvantage. For those schools, it's more about the logistics we need to work with them around. For example, a primary school in Barnsley delivers a traditional breakfast club from a huge hall. We provided them with funding to buy slow cookers so they could get the porridge and the beans on early and use the ovens to prepare the bagels rather than relying on two-slice toasters. Otherwise, it would be a very early start. Also, there are further considerations for special schools around how staffing, funding and flexibility can be considered to best meet children's needs.
What could be the wider benefits of the policy?
We found through evaluations of Magic Breakfast and the National School Breakfast Programme that removing hunger from the classroom improves behaviour and the learning environment. They found the benefit of a free school breakfast at the start of the day wasn't just for those who attended, it had a whole-school impact – for the classroom environment, the teachers' ability to focus on teaching, and the levels of focus and concentration.
LINDSEY MACDONALD
- Nov 2021 – present: Chief executive, Magic Breakfast
- Sept 2014 – Nov 2021: Managing director, Street League
- Sept 2011 – Sept 2014: Co-founder and head of research, Homeless Football Association
- Apr 2010 – Mar 2013: Senior innovations project officer, Homeless Link
- July 2007 – Apr 2010: Programme assistant, CWM
