By Annette Montague, Chief Education Officer, Greenwood Academies Trust

What’s not to like? Of course, all parents will be attracted to the principle of having childcare available at their child’s school.  If you stop anyone in the street and ask, ‘Do you think having free breakfast clubs in schools is a good idea?’ unquestionably the answer will be a resounding ‘yes’.

The benefits are obvious. For parents, an earlier drop off supports getting to work.  Having breakfast provided is another stress taken care of, for some a lifeline.  For schools, getting children in and fed can support a smoother start to the day and better learning.  It can, in some targeted cases, support improved attendance.

Current provision
Current breakfast club provision is delivered in many different formats. For example, in Greenwood Academies Trust (GAT), across our 26 primary academies, 24 have a breakfast club and the two without have no parental demand for one, so our clubs vary by school and local demand.  Charges are about £2/£2.50 a session but of course many identified families are supported with those costs using our general budgets or the Pupil Premium grant.  

Until this year, many of our schools ran these clubs at no charge but budget pressures mean that this is now not possible. We reckon this amount broadly covers food, resources and staffing by teaching assistants – it doesn’t, however, cover utilities, training or leadership supervision and absence cover. 

Significant concerns
Along with those stopped in the street at the beginning of the blog, I am in favour of school breakfast clubs. So, why am I so concerned about the direction of travel in this policy area? 

Because there is a world of difference between having choice, and control, of this type of provision to placing a permanent duty on all primary schools to provide it in a specified format that includes ALL pupils being able to access it, free at the point of use, and ‘funding’ it at a rate that doesn’t even cover the cost of the food.  

There are some voices in the sector, rightly, identifying the substantial logistical challenges that this will give schools: space, staffing, training, cleaning, safeguarding, allergen management, resource provision, food procurement to name a few. Indeed, the Early Adopter guidance (the initiative that precedes the expected national roll out) runs to 17 pages and lists over 22 other pieces of guidance of which leaders should be cognisant.  

But I also have broader concerns:

• Purpose and value for money: if 85% of schools already provide this, why are we moving to a model whereby the state starts covering the cost?  This is a significant national investment with no real clarity about purpose – is this about getting to work?  Improving nutrition? Improving learning?  Attendance? Because, notwithstanding it sounds like a great idea and I can see why it became a manifesto commitment, it is not a great strategy to achieve any of those outcomes.
• Conflation of roles and responsibilities: schools are not childcare providers. Our core purpose is to provide high-quality education. Mandating us to deliver childcare subtly changes the national perspective of what a primary school should be for, and in effect just increases our opening hours, increasing workload on leaders. It is generally accepted that schools are becoming the 4th emergency service, picking up the under resourced responsibilities from health, social care, police etc. I feel requiring childcare and the provision of breakfast goes too far.
• Budget: 60p per pupil per session will not cover running costs. And let’s not forget this now becomes a duty, so this will force primary schools, those least able to withstand budget pressures at a time of decreasing pupil numbers, to have to run this provision, increasing costs and either reducing resources available for teaching or increasing deficit budgets.
• The childcare market: the proposed model risks running a railroad across all current provision. Whilst it allows for private provider delivery, the proposed funding levels are not operable, and no local provider could compete against free school-based provision. 

I understand a desire for equity, and I am not, in principle, against the idea of increasing breakfast club provision.  However, the imposition of a permanent additional duty, not fully funded, has what I am sure are unintended consequences.  Wouldn’t we as school leaders be better concentrating on our hard-enough day job?

I hope the sector can work with the government to tweak the current proposals to still achieve their laudable ambitions, and I support ASCL’s position on this as a pragmatic way to recognise the manifesto commitment but encourage more flexibility in implementation.  Some initial investment and support are welcomed but we need to be developing self-sustaining models that complement and add value to education provision rather than potentially detracting from it.