Children are benefiting from free breakfasts, a York head teacher has said.
Osbaldwick Primary Academy head teacher Matt Brown said children not enjoying breakfast at home faced hurdles before the school day had begun.
But he added the launch of a free breakfast club at the school earlier in April as part of a City of York Council programme was already starting to make a difference.
It follows the roll out of the council’s Hungry Minds school meals programme to another ten primary schools at the start of the summer term on Monday, 13 April.
Breakfasts are being offered at nine of the schools, with further work being done in one of them.
Osbaldwick Primary head Mr Brown said around a third of pupils in some of his schools were from disadvantaged backgrounds, including some of the most deprived parts of York.
The headteacher said: “We’ve got pupils that come in late, they’re disadvantaged and they’ve not had breakfast, before the bell’s even run they’ve got a harder start.
“I’ve been on home visits myself and it’s quite shocking to see the conditions some of them live in and the barriers they have to overcome, this means those pupils are able to enjoy a breakfast.
“We know that many parents and families are working so hard, but face challenges for a wide range of reasons.
“This will have such a big impact not just when the children are in primary school but when they get to secondary school and into the workplace too.”
Expanded scheme
The schools where free breakfast clubs have expanded to are:
- Haxby Road Primary
- Hob Moor Primary
- Lakeside Primary
- New Earswick Primary
- Osbaldwick Primary
- Poppleton Road Primary
- St Lawrence’s CE Primary
- Stockon on Forest Primary
- Tang Hall Primary
- Woodthorpe Primary
The council is working on extending the scheme to a further eight schools, with more details set to come in due course.
The pilot launched in January 2024 with free lunches for Years Three to Six pupils at Westfield Primary Community School, following a pledge from the council’s ruling Labour group.
It later expanded with free breakfast clubs at Burton Green Primary School, Fishergate Primary School and a further 10 in April through the Hungry Minds scheme.
The programme is financed by private donations and council grants.
Council children’s services lead Martin Kelly said they were aiming to give out 179,000 thousand free breakfasts over the next three years.
He added he was proud of what the scheme had managed to achieve in the weeks since it expanded to the ten new schools.
The scheme was launched to help struggling children and families with the cost of living and academic research since has found behaviour, attendance and concentration in lessons has improved.
But the council’s Liberal Democrat opposition has questioned the scheme’s financial viability, as well as claiming breakfast clubs departed from the original aim of free lunches.
Cllr Bob Webb, ruling Labour’s children’s spokesperson, has previously said breakfast clubs were found to offer better value for money than universal free lunches.
Speaking after the recent expansion, Cllr Webb said: “A colleague of mine visited Lakeside Primary last week and was shown around by a young man.
“They asked him about free breakfasts and he said he’d gone out and bought an alarm clock so he could turn up to school on time for it, it’s making a huge difference to his life.
“When we came to power we recognised that we needed to do something different to support the most vulernable, York is an unequal city and some struggle with the inequality they face.
“We’re hopeful we can continue to expand this scheme within these schools and to more schools, which is really positive.
“We’re in a cost of living crisis nationally and every little really does help, this is making a real difference and schools have really stepped up.”
