Why Is Britain’s Free School Breakfast Program The Best In The World

Thousands of more children across the country will get a healthy and nutritious breakfast to set them up for the school day, thanks to an additional investment of up to £11.8 million by the government to support disadvantaged families.

So far around 1,800 school breakfast clubs have been created or improved by the National School Breakfast Programme in disadvantaged areas and thanks to this additional investment up to 650 more schools will benefit in the next year, with resources specifically targeted at the most disadvantaged areas to help make sure every child gets the best start in life.

Underlining the government’s bold manifesto pledge to level up across the country and create a £1 billion fund for more high-quality wraparound and holiday childcare places, thousands more disadvantaged children will also be offered activities and free meals during the six week summer holiday in 2020, funded by £9 million from the Department for Education.

The new funding means that we can offer an additional term of support to more than 1,800 existing NSBP schools and support up to 650 new schools to kick start or improve their breakfast provision. Every single meal that is being provided through this programme is making an immediate difference to children across the country every day. It is literally fuelling learning.

Carmel McConnell, MBE, founder of Magic Breakfast, said:

The Holiday Activities and Food scheme follows successful programs in 2018 and 2019, which saw charities and community groups provide meals and activities such as football, play sessions and cooking classes for children across the country. Around 18,000 children benefited in 2018, and the program was expanded in 2019, with around 50,000 children enjoying this free holiday provision this year. The Department launched a recruitment process to find co-ordinators to run similar programs in 2020.

Through these breakfast and holiday programs, parents will also have access to information so that they can learn how best to provide their children with healthy food, as an additional new strand of our overall provision next year.