Parliamentarians, policymakers, pupils and teachers are gathering in Westminster today with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to celebrate the success of school breakfast clubs and the benefits they offer young people across the country.
Since I launched the campaign to secure Government funding for school breakfast clubs over a decade ago, provision has greatly expanded throughout England. In 2010 just 1 in 6 pupils benefitted from Free School Meals. Today one third of pupils in education benefit. Because of providers like Magic Breakfast and the Conservative Government’s flagship National School Breakfast Programme (NSBP), hundreds of thousands of pupils from underprivileged backgrounds now receive a nutritious breakfast every school day. For that reason, Magic Breakfast was chosen as the Christmas appeal charity for The Times and Sunday Times last year, reflecting the public’s strong support for school breakfasts.
For children, first and foremost, the positive impacts of breakfast are vast. Research has shown that children in secondary school who eat a healthy breakfast regularly achieve, on average, 2 GCSEs higher than children who rarely eat breakfast. Meanwhile, Magic Breakfast’s model of provision for Year 2 pupils has been found to boost children’s reading, writing and maths by an average of 2 months’ progress over the course of the academic year compared to pupils in schools with no provision. School breakfasts have also been found to increase attendance and improve classroom behaviour, encouraging more children to learn each day and helping create a calm, nurturing environment where disruption is reduced and learning enhanced.
For parents and carers, school breakfast clubs are a widely welcomed intervention that help hard-working families with cost-of-living challenges and enable them to access and undertake better paid work opportunities through extra morning childcare support.
That’s why the Government’s new funding pot of £289 million for wraparound care announced in March’s Budget offers an excellent opportunity to extend the benefits of breakfast to more children and families. Earlier this month, the Government launched the expanded childcare provision pathfinder programme involving 16 local authorities, reflecting the key role that councils play across the country helping parents and carers – and which can be even greater in the future. The Chancellor rightly identified that poor access to childcare hurts the finances of the country and households alike, stating that it’s both “damaging to our economy and unfair, mainly to women.” Similarly, a recent report found a low-income lone parent with two children could be £1,200 better off annually if the costs of 1.5 hours of childcare were removed.
The best way to ensure the Government’s expanded wraparound care policy has a powerful impact on children’s education is to firmly embed school breakfasts within it. By doing this, families can be supported into work – or better work – whilst their children are given the fuel to learn. Local authorities, multi-academy trusts and schools who benefit from the Budget funding should all commit to launching or expanding breakfast clubs to ensure no child from their community goes to school too hungry to learn.
The Conservative Party’s record on education is one to be proud of, with an incredible rise in school standards since 2010, and the best readers in the Western World. Simultaneously, more than any other government, we have made sure that more children have the fuel they need for learning by extending Free School Meals and introducing the NSBP which reaches up to 2700 schools across England. Our education success story owes a great deal to our longest serving Schools Minister Nick Gibb, and critically, to our exceptionally dedicated teaching staff up and down the country. The knowledge-based curriculum and focus on standards has been accompanied by unlocking the potential in children and young people everywhere. It is a triumph of food and phonics.
However, we should not be complacent about food insecurity and the constant need to combat it, especially in our most deprived communities. Food insecurity leads to a widening attainment gap and a dramatic rise in school absences. This not only risks many of our recent educational gains being lost, but can also lead to children developing unhealthy eating habits and not receiving essential nutrients for development. Whilst breakfasts are no silver bullet, they are a proven and effective tool in tackling the pressing social and economic challenges caused by child hunger. We should not forget that, in the long-term, for less than 30p per breakfast, this intervention can generate £50 to the public purse for every £1 spent.
The Government has rightly identified that “being pro-education is pro-growth”. Similarly, the Prime Minister’s personal passion for a British Baccalaureate will equip the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow. For our economy to grow and our society to thrive we need to support parents to work and make sure we feed the future success of every child. That starts with breakfast.
Alan Mak is Conservative MP for Havant and former President & Trustee of Magic Breakfast
Breakfast, food and phonics can unlock our children’s learning (thetimes.co.uk)