School in Lancashire withdraws from free breakfast club pilot due to costs
The Government is giving schools 78p to provide breakfast for those on free school meals and 60p for children not on free school meals. Smith said this wasn’t not enough money to feed children and pay staff.
Sharneyford Primary School in Bacup was selected as one of 14 schools from Lancashire to take part in the pilot scheme. The early adopter phase will inform the Government’s landmark national roll out which will give all parents access to the scheme.
Smith told BBC News: "Because the free 30 minutes has to be immediately before school, and our before-school club runs for an hour before the school day, we'd be losing half our earnings, because you can't charge for that half an hour before the school day.
"Ideas like this are vital to our children. The difficulty is, although we are getting 60p per child and 78p per free school meal child, it's not enough to cover the cost in terms of staffing, the food and resources.”
Schools are encouraged to offer healthy, varied and nutritious breakfasts, with examples from wheat bisks and porridge to fresh fruit and yoghurt. Out of the 180,000 children who will benefit in the early adopter schools, around 67,000 attend schools in deprived areas.