DfE survey highlights primary head teachers’ concerns about breakfast clubs
The Government recently announced the scheme is to be extended to more schools from April 2026.
Supported by a £80m investment, 2,000 new schools are set to join the original 750 schools which are already delivering free breakfast clubs as part of an early adopter scheme.
Education Secretary Bridget Philipson says they are ‘driving improvements in children’s attendance, attainment and behaviour’.
However, the DfE survey has highlighted the barriers schools face when delivering free breakfast clubs. Three quarters (75%) of head teachers said they were not financially viable for their school, while 71% said they did not have enough staff to cope, and a 51% cited a lack of suitable or enough space or facilities as an issue.
Other concerns raised among the 770 primary school heads who took part in the ‘school and college voice’ survey in the spring, included the 50% who felt they were unable to deliver the breakfast club while ‘accommodating the individual needs of all the children’, while a further 16% said there too little demand by parents for a breakfast club.
The top three staffing challenges schools identified when providing breakfast provision were the ability to recruit enough suitable staff (44%), the extra administrative burden placed staff already struggling with a heavy workload (35%), and the need to amend or extend existing staff hours (30%).
A third of 546 primary school leaders who felt they wouldn’t have enough staff to operate a free breakfast club, said they would need to hire five or more additional staff to meet anticipated demand from all pupils who would want it.