No more free school meals for youngest pupils.

gillybob £5 sounds a bit steep, but I'm not surprised. Ten years ago, I was on the committee for my son's out-of-hours provider and we charged about £3 an hour (from memory). Staffing, including enhanced DBS and training in child protection and health and safety, is by far the biggest cost.

I don't know how much childminders charge these days, but I suspect it's not far off.

I suspect the clubs you know insist on regular attendance, because staff need to be paid, however many children attend. There are laws about minimum staffing levels. We didn't insist on everyday attendance (although most did), but parents had to commit to certain days. A few parents used tax credits to pay the fees.

We had volunteers (such as me), but we mainly did fund raising and administration, such as accounts and recruitment. We also ordered the food.

JessM The Sutton Trust has a toolkit for the use of Pupil Premium money and breakfast clubs have been shown to be an efficient use of money.

It's not just that children have food, but the clubs improve punctuality and readiness to learn. Moreover, they're an opportunity for children to have contact with adults and other children in a non-academic way, which can have advantages for learning.

Have asked a few people (neighbors and my DD and DDil's friends) and school breakfast clubs are really quite expensive. The most expensive I have found around here is £25 per week (the children can attend for one hour before school) and the bulk of this seems to go to paying staff as the breakfast is as I suspected cold cereal or toast and a piece of fruit. Apparently you cannot pay on a day to day basis . A few others are around the £3 per day (which seems to be an average). I am quite shocked as to how expensive it is. Mind you going by what my DGC say the school dinners are very poor for the price and don't seem to be in the slightest bit balanced despite what Jamie Oliver and his cronies might think. Since when was a dried up sandwich and a crispy cake a decent lunch?

Tories are planning 7% cut to school budgets. That is a lot

There have been numerous models for breakfast clubs.
I remember when I was a secondary governor, about 6-7 years ago we had funding for "extended school hours" - it was money to pay people to run activities before and after school. So some was used to pay a couple of our classroom assistants to start early and do supervise breakfast session plus the catering manager used to come in early to do the food.
We also spent some on paying people to do after school activities.
It all comes down to money and 90% will be staffing.
There are commercially run breakfast clubs in some schools. Pre-school childcare for working parents. Not cheap as you are paying for staff, rent of space, food and activities (they don't just leave kids to watch telly) - you'd expect to pay the same rate as you do for an after-school club.
Like the extended schools money (which disappeared) the pupil premium money is spent at the discretion of the head in consultation with the governors. It is meant to support the academic achievement of those at risk i believe and schools may well feel that food is not the best way to improve attainment.
During the last Labour government funding for schools experienced a very significant rise. Blair followed through on "Education, education,education" A lot of capital money was also spent refurbishing and rebuilding the schools that had been physically left to fall down under Thatcher and Major.
Then various bits of funding were trimmed away by Gove. A great deal of money has been wasted on acquiring buildings, often unsuitable ones, for his pet project - Free Schools (this continued under Morgan). Many schools were bribed to become free standing academies with promise of better funding.
School funding is now going backward rapidly in England - costs are rising - salaries, NI, fuel bills etc and some schools are finding themselves having to shed staff, and maintenance budgets no doubt. I know someone who is a governor of an academy and it is now dawning on them that there is no money for any much needed building projects, however much they are needed.

The obvious thing to do would be to use Pupil Premium funding for the bulk of the financing needed to run a club. Certain pupils would receive a free place and others could be charged (perhaps) £1 a session, which is a load cheaper than childcare for parents who need to be at work themselves. Ring-fenced government funding would be an additional top up.

As others have said, some schools can't be arsed.

Maggiemaybe The school breakfasts were almost certainly funded with Pupil Premium grants (currently £1320pa for eligible pupil) - another LibDem initiative.

Many schools use part of the grant for breakfast clubs and this has been shown to be an extremely effective use of money.

Free school lunches for 4-7 year olds was a Liberal Democrat policy enacted during the coalition which proved very beneficial. How much worse things are when the Tories do what they want.

How different schools are, depending on the area they're in, of course.

The breakfast club at the school where I worked was free, as are many in deprived areas. It was paid for from the school budget and catered for up to 30 targeted children, ie just some of those we knew would not get a breakfast at home. Run by staff, as not all schools are lucky enough to have enthusiastic volunteers to call on.

I can't see that kitchen facilities are an issue, but staffing certainly would be for many schools. I don't agree that incorporating the scheme into teaching hours would work - the loss of over an hour's education per week for Reception to Y6 children would be significant.

Yep my thoughts exactly.

Or maybe (like my DGC's school) angelab they just don't want the hassle.

gilly my local primary wouldn't consider after-school club, said they weren't insured...

My friends works in a school where the breakfasts are sponsored by a local company who supply the fruit and bread. The parents of the children who attend still pay for the supervision time.

Many schools already operate breakfast clubs (although I don't believe they are free) sadly my DGC's school does not. For the schools that already operate them, will it make any difference?

Could the breakfast not be served at the start of the normal day? Lets face it we are talking 15 minutes for the youngest school children. Will that really impact on their education?

Why the need for a kitchen? We are probably talking toast/fruit/cold cereal. Does that really need a full kitchen?

There could be a parent rota set up via the governors and/or PTA's so the teachers wouldn't need to be involved if they didn't want to be.

My DGC's school has an army of parents and grandparents ready willing and able to help start a breakfast club but the school refuse. I can't understand why.

schoolsweek.co.uk/conservatives-free-breakfast-pledge-costed-at-just-7p-per-meal/

How much would you expect a breakfast to cost?

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?

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

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

Sure you can work out what I meant.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.