Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the National School Breakfast Club Programme.

The Government is committed to continuing support for school breakfast clubs and the Department is investing up to £30 million between July 2021 and July 2024 to continue the national programme. This funding will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas meaning that thousands of children from low-income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness to learn. The focus of the programme is to target the most disadvantaged areas of the country, including the Department’s Education Investment Areas.

Over 2,100 schools are currently participating in the programme, and the supplier, Family Action, is continuing to recruit more schools. Family Action has estimated that 270,000 children are having a breakfast from the programme on an average school day.

Research shows the positive impact of school breakfasts. An Education Endowment Fund evaluation of the earlier Magic Breakfast programme, found that supporting schools to run a free of charge, universal breakfast club before school delivered an average of 2 months’ additional progress for pupils in Key Stage 1 with moderate to low security. Schools also saw an improvement in pupil behaviour and attendance.

It also found that pupils who attended breakfast clubs had reduced hunger and improved concertation levels in class. Additional positive impacts on pupils’ social development and the way in which they helped some pupils make wider friendship groups and become more confident were also highlighted by schools.