School breakfast clubs

You're forgiven. It's easy to forget teachers and nurses have families too. Non-pupil days are a pain in the posterior for teachers, especially if the teacher is married to a teacher, who can't take holiday in term-time and if they have more than one child, attending different schools. I used to book nannies well in advance, which cost a fortune, while I sat/slept through some "training" (aka some member of the senior leadership droning on about something I already knew).

I hadn't even thought what starting 'half an hour' later would mean for teachers and nurses!

Well, it would certainly do away with the need for breakfast and after school clubs, as a high percentage of the users' parents are teachers and nurses. So who covers for the nurses and teachers?

Can you imagine the chaos if teachers etc, did not turn up to their own schools until half an hour later because they were dropping their own children off at a different school, patients waiting in surgeries, hospitals, businesses on hold etc.

Hours of work are not always a parents choice Yorkshiregel my daughter gets texted her hours on Sunday evening and often its for an 8am start. So in answer to your question no, some parents have no control over their hours especially when its a zero hour contract set up for you by the Job centre. She would much prefer to be home for her daughter but the Job centre say otherwise I'm afraid.. oh for a perfect World.

Children who go to well run breakfast clubs have an excellent start to the day.

I think it says a lot about businesses when people have to send their child to breakfast clubs. Surely they can start a half hour later can't they? Money before people all the time these days.

I still think it is a great idea for those who rely on them though, but I think they shouldn't have to. Children need a good start to the day.

A banana is a better idea than giving them Danish pastries. So fattening! However an egg is even better and only takes 3 minutes to cook. Coupled with a slice of toast and the child would be kept going until lunch.

I doubt that DD eats breakfast now!

Yes, Jalima, my grandaughter likes fruit and yogurt for breakfast, so if she is late coming round, rather than waking up, she can have half at her house and half at mine.

It sounds like a wonderful idea, especially for those children who dont have their parents at home in the morning because of being at work, these children will have a good nutritional breakfast,and work harder at School, what a shame all Schools dont have this.

Getting a banana and yogurt down her before school when she was in her teens was an achievement!

I bought DD a picture for her bedroom with 'I am not a morning person' on it.
She still isn't.

Sorry, she has a mug, not a mjug, whaever one of those is.

My grandaughter has a mjug saying "I am not a morning person" and she isn't. She used to hate breakfast club where she had to play dodgeball which she also hated. She would be given a slice of bread and jam.
She much prefers coming to my house at 8.00 am. and being able to relax for half an hour by drawing.

I worked flexible hours in a job share which worked really well as we both had children and could cover for each other if necessary.

Even those in a marriage or partnership may find that some partners have to spend weeks, if not months, working away eg overseas or travelling round the country living away in the week. Mothers as well as fathers.
The SAHP has to often juggle work and bringing up the family, that is why part-time work or job sharing is so flexible.

Shorter working hours would be brilliant. One key thing is that the people I know who are in work, work well over 35 - 38 hours a week. There are so many people looking for proper work, rather than zero hours that surely we could as a country be more creative in the way we approach work. It's tough to work full time with children. I was so fortunate in having flexible hours and a husband who took his share of child care, domestic stuff etc. I couldn't have done my work as a single carer or if I'd been sharing my life with a partner who didn't see family life as our central concern.

and wipe the rim!

'clean the toilet'? What? Just squirt some bleach around the bowl - sorted!

mothers who work part time evenings in supermarkets
I did do that for a while because we needed the money.

Fuck housework! There are more important things in life, especially when you have young kids

thatbags that's more or less what the lovely midwife said to be when DC2 arrived (well, without the fuck). She said do the washing, clean the toilet, make sure there's food then go out with the children. It was a lovely summer and we lived near the coast.
Not very healthy though, I should have gone back to work

Has anyone in fact "scorned" stay-at-home mums?
Yes
^ should a woman (or a man)devote years of their lives and all their waking hours to housework and looking after children? I don't think that is healthy for either them or the children.^
That is quite scornful saying that it is not healthy for a mother to be at home with her children.

Most people I know did manage a balance unless they were bringing up children on their own; worked, brought up a family until the children started at school then back to work either full or part-time.
However, I do know some women who, despite impressive qualifications, never did return to the workplace after having a family which would seem to be a waste of education and potential.

We did our best tanith. Ofsted thought so too.

We were lucky, because we were in a small village and a small group of people worked tirelessly to get it started and to apply for the lottery funding for the building.

One of the people who is still there had started as an assistant in the pre-school, which at the time was in a decrepit church hall. Over the years she's had the opportunity to gain qualifications and she is an advisor for other start-up groups. I don't know how much she's paid now, but when I was there, we paid her well over usual childcare rates.

I became involved, because I was on maternity leave after my son was born. It was the first opportunity I'd had to become involved in the life of the village.

One thing's for sure and that is that breakfast clubs shouldn't be run on the cheap just to tick a box. It's not good enough to employ a couple of TAs for an hour before school and offer white toast and water.

daphnedill sounds like a perfect example of what a Breakfast Club should be. Something that is there every day for the children regardless of their circumstances.

The breakfast club which I helped organise offered cereal, porridge, white or brown toast, butter, jam, cheese, scrambled egg, yoghurt, fresh fruit, milk, squash and water.

There was a quiet area, where children could read or do homework, another area, where children could chat or play games and an outside area, where they could run around.

There aren't many opportunities during the school day for children to socialise and this hour before school gave them time to be together, without constantly being assessed. Some children brought their problems into school and they had an opportunity to chat with an adult, who wasn't their parent. Teachers reported that children were more ready to learn when school started. There was nearly always a waiting list for places.

Not all the mothers worked. Some had a number of children and their children came to breakfast club, because they preferred being with their friends rather than sitting around waiting for younger siblings to be fed and dressed.

The club has now been running for 19 years and is still going strong and two of the original staff are still there. The building is used for breakfast club, an after school club, a pre-school group and a holiday club, which meant that staff could be employed almost full-time,if they wanted. They all had appropriate health and safety, child protection and first aid training.

Has anyone in fact "scorned" stay-at-home mums? Some working mums were responding, quite reasonably I thought, to the suggestion by someone that mums who work are wilfully greedy, selfish and neglectful.

I think that the hours both women and men work are far too long. It was thought that over time the hours that consituted full time working/full time pay would reduce - as happened in the past when the idea of two days off a week and holidays was originally a seemingly unrealistic dream. But what we have now is some people working far more hours for for the same or less pay than would previously have been received, and far too many people working fewer and often unpredictable hours with pay that cannot meet their expenses.

What I feel is that both men and women should be working far fewer hours without affecting their established income. Although I think women should also have the chance to work - and progress in their careers if they so wish - I agree that the whole process of normalising (and in some ways making it feel obligatory) that two parents should be working full time hours, whatever the age of their children, has been detrimental to families. I think it is particularly so when childcare is so expensive and, in many cases, is not very good.

It seems to me that, as more women joined the workforce, so prices increased to reflect greater spending capacity. That is why two people working today seem to be no more secure and comfortable than one person working years ago. I know people will say "yes, but people expect much more these days and spend much more". In my opinion, it has always been the case that each generations believes that the newer one has more grandiose expectations and is more extravagant.

In my view, the "more more more" way of life is being encouraged by both business and government. When businesses post their profits, there is usually consternation if they have only made the same profit as the year before, or - heaven forbid - a smaller profit. There must be a point at which profits cannot be increased any further without serious detriment to employees' pay and conditions, the environment or the quality of product/service being sold - or a combination of all three.