No more free school meals for youngest pupils.

daphne - no, no kitchen! Hence having to ship meals in.

Originally though, schools did have kitchens didn't they. The introduction of FSM and the campaign by Jamie Oliver to improve the quality of school meals had a positive impact.
Many local schools in areas of high deprivation run breakfast clubs, some have volunteer staff alongside school staff. For some children the toast, fruit and drink they get at the breakfast club is the first meal they had since their school dinner the previous day. I'm assuming that some children will continue to qualify for FSM and we'll be in the situation where they're given a chit to hand in, ensuring everyone knows their circumstances.
It's beginning to feel like Narnia, always winter and never Christmas - as was the case when Maggie Thatcher was the Ice Queen.
Compassionate Conservatism? I think not.

"DD If you knew anything about schools..." Nah! I know nothing about schools! Why should I? I was only a teacher for 30 years and had children at school for 19 years.

I'll find the more recent report which doubted the value of free school lunches, but I haven't had my wake up coffee yet.

900000 poor children to have their meals taken from them by the Tories.

Compassionate Conservatism? Dead and firmly buried.

Yesterday on radio 4 we were told by some educational academic that there was a great deal of evidence to show that children were performing better since the introduction of free lunches.

But it isn't just about educational performance is it? It is about the health of our children, instilling good eating habits and nutrition to those whose parents are either too useless or too poor to give them a proper diet.

I wrote this a few days on another thread:
I'd like to know how the costing of the change from free school lunches for three primary years to free breakfasts for seven primary years was done, supposedly to free up money to be spent elsewhere in schools. The infrastructure and staffing for the extra lunches is now all in place, having been extremely difficult to achieve for many schools. So now, three years on, are they expected to make yet more changes to kitchen and supervisory staff hours, switching them from lunchtime to early morning? Presumably get the morning cleaners in even earlier and pay someone to set up the halls for eating, then clear and clean them again before morning assembly? Assuming that is that we're talking half decent breakfasts and not a bowl of cereal at the desks, which is what any school provides for children who need it anyway. I can't see a massive saving here, just a massive disruption for most primary schools.

Since then it seems to have been confirmed that the breakfast is to be a cold one, so yes, a bowl of cereal at the desk. Shameful. And probably a backward step in child nutrition. I can see children wanting to go in to eat sugary cereal with their friends at school instead of having a decent breakfast at home.

Anya "I thought your statement about free school meals not helping children sounded like one of those statements people just throw into an argument to bolster their opinion without knowing the facts DD or even make up."

I don't throw unsubstantiated statements into an argument, nor do I "make things up" to support my opinions.

Take your pick from these articles:

www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9202

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/free-breakfast-disadvantaged-children-would-be-better-universal-free

educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/breakfast-clubs-found-to-boost-primary-pupils-reading-writing-and-maths-res/

www.equalitytrust.org.uk/beware-free-lunches

Your apology is taken as a given.

Yoghurt and fruit are usually served cold.

Talking about useless parents is a bit patronising.

Youngest GD is an infant and is entitled to a free meal, it does not mean she will eat it. Parents assuming child has had a hot meal may not give them much at home.
I think it would be a very lucky child that got a cooked breakfast before leaving home, cereal and yogurt is more likely in a family where both parents work.

How would you describe then dd?

Exactly harrigran.

PS.My children had free school lunches for a while when they were at primary school, but never felt stigmatised. Primary school meals are usually paid for in advance and no cash changes hands when the meals are served. It's not rocket science to devise a system, in which no pupil knows who's paid or not.

My son then had free school lunches when he was at secondary school. The school loaded money on to his swipe card. Again, no pupils knew whether had been loaded by their parents or the school.

But what do I know? According to anya I know nothing!

How would I describe what?

Just occurred to me that when Mrs Thatcher took away free school milk we called her Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, can we now call Mrs May Theresa the Meal Stealer?

Conservative priorities ....take food away from kids who need it...but keep subsidising food and expensive champagne etc for the houses Of Commons and the Lords .Well they only get paid £300 a day ...you cant expect them to pay for their OWN food can you?VOTE TORY and watch old old people sleep through the day in the Lords and feast on taxpayers money ..poor children..what are they?Makes my blood boil !!

dd useless parents - you know the ones that have the resources and brains but not the wit to ensure their child has proper nutrition. I thought I was being quite restrained calling them useless.

I've seen on Mumsnet articulate mothers say that as their child has a cooked lunch at school/nursery there's no need to give them very much to eat in the evening!

I don't know why one cooked meal a day is considered to be sufficient.

The children hardest hit by this will be from the just managing families TM claims to care so much about. And from the poorest families not entitled to FSM - those newly arrived to the country, for example. And the minimum wage kitchen staff about to have their hours cut.
Presumably surplus midday supervisors will be expected to change their hours.

My grandchildren often have eggs and porridge for breakfast. If it's toast it's wholemeal with butter. Cereal is Weetabix or muesli. The Breakfast Club at the school where I worked offered the cheapest sugary cereal, value white bread and butter substitute. Yoghurt was never on offer because of the mess.

The free school meals for KS1 was a b*gger to put in place, but at least it put an end (a temporary one, as it turns out) to 4 year olds turning up to school with a whole value Swiss roll or a cold half-eaten Big Mac in a paper bag for lunch.

DD this from your first link

"The pilot found that Year 6 students in areas of universal provision made an additional two months’ progress over the course of two years relative to similar students in other areas. These are significant effects, roughly the same size as the benefits from national programmes such as the “literacy hour”."

l'll investigate the others later! No apology.

DD scrutinised your second link for research, couldn't find any. This appears to be one man's opinion.

No apology but it's useful to know the difference between fact and opinion! IMO

DD third link. All about benefits of Breakfast Clubs which I don't disputed. That is why when working for the LEA I drew down Lottery Funding (NOF) to find these in disadvantaged schools in Bootle and elsewhere.

Still no apology.

DD fourth and final link. No reseach, facts or figures again in this just someone's opinion

So no apologies.

It is not disputed that Breakfast Clubs have a positive effect on learning, so why disputed my link which is the only one on this forum based on research that universal free lunches also gave a positive impact.

Re your teaching experience, long as it undoubtedly was, it appears that you nevev taught in a school which had lunches 'shipped in' or you would have known this happened pre September 2014,

I have another point to make which other experienced teachers, and social workers, will undoubtedly back me up on. It's not just the poor and disadvantage child who suffers from poor nutrition and the consequences. There are at least two other categories and possible more.

There is the child whose parents could provide a healthy balanced diet but CBA'd and there are those who are too proud to apply for FSM and struggle on as best they can.

Jamie Oliver (bless his pudgy little self) has expressed regret at this decision and there is evidence out there, if you choose to seek it out (I ain't got the time today) that eating standards have improved since September 2014 as a result of children eating a balanced lunch st school. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence that children are eating a more varied diet at home too.

Excuse typos. In hurry, watching for imminent arrival of Very Important Guest.

Sure you can work out what I meant.

Well GN spotted the flaw in the manifesto "promise" immediately.
Not properly costed. As Nigel Molesworth might have said "Any fule no that kids need someone to look after them - and make breakfast. And those people need to be paid"
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40032282

That's an interesting link, Jess. Free school breakfasts for ALL but we assume only 25% will want them, so that's what the costings based on - oh, and we didn't think to include staffing costs - or we left them out deliberately so it would seem better value.

Can we trust any figures the Tories give us in that case?