A child enjoys breakfast at Claycots Primary School in Slough
Free breakfast clubs will roll out to a further 500 primary schools from April – with a £6,500 yearly funding boost compared to last year’s phase.
The fresh rollout of Labour’s flagship manifesto scheme will this time target the most disadvantaged areas of the country. Bridget Phillipson said free breakfasts are “revolutionising morning routines” across the country.
“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,” the Education Secretary said.
“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parent, so I know first-hand the struggles facing parents trying to make ends meet and how important it is to tackle outdated stigmas with practical support that people can feel every day.”
The extension to 500 more schools is set to benefit 300,000 students, ministers said. Some 750 schools were announced last year as part of a pilot.
Speaking to The Mirror, Education Minister Olivia Bailey said a key lesson from the first round was that schools needed more funding. “The thing that I think is most important is that we have made some amendments to the funding of the schemes, to increase the funding a little bit more for schools, which will make a difference,” she told The Mirror.
“So for the average school with a kind of 50% take up, we’re now looking at around £30,000 a year and that’s about £6,500 more than there would have been in the first phase.”
Speaking about targeting disadvantaged schools, Ms Bailey added: “The 500 that are joining from April are schools with a higher proportion of children on free school meals. The reason that we’ve chosen to do that in this space is because we’re really determined to tackle educational inequalities, and this is one way that we can do it.
“The most important principle is that no child can learn on an empty stomach, and so that good, nutritional breakfast at the start of the day is really, really important.”
The department decided to revise its funding model after headteachers in rural areas and smaller schools reported particular difficulties in operating a free breakfast club
The extra funding – some £80million in total for the next phase – will come from the Department of Education’s settlement at last Spring’s Spending Review. This will fund a further 2,000 schools to get breakfast clubs, 500 from April and 1,500 from September.
Applications have open on Monday for schools wanting to join the scheme in September. Labour has promised for every primary school in England to have a free breakfast club by the end of the Parliament.
The Department for Education (DfE) says free breakfast clubs save working parents up to £450 a year. Evidence also shows breakfast clubs boost attendance, attainment and behaviour.
Parents are increasingly hoping their school provides one of the clubs, with polling commissioned by the department showing nearly half (45%) of parents prioritise primary schools with free breakfast clubs.
The DfE is encouraging more schools to sign up as universal access is thought to help remove the stigma of breakfast support, with six in ten (60%) parents more likely to use it when it’s available to everyone.
