School concerned about 'unviable' free breakfast club

The government is paying towards the cost of breakfast clubs at 750 schools

A head teacher has said her primary school considered pulling out of a government breakfast club scheme because the funding does not cover the cost of it.

Sharneyford Primary School in Bacup was one of 14 in Lancashire named as part of the nationwide scheme involving 750 schools.

Head teacher Sarah Smith said the amount given per meal per child - 78p for those on free school meals - was not enough to cover the cost of food and staff.

The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said the government would "be working with school leaders... to make sure we get this right".

Sharneyford Primary School in Bacup said it could not afford to make the breakfast club work

Ms Smith said: "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."

She said "ideas like this are vital to our children", but said the "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, resources, et cetera."

'Makes us sad'

The school, on Todmorden Road in Bacup, has room for 70 children.

Ms Smith said: "We're a very small school, so budget is incredibly tight for us anyway.

"To then put ourselves in an ever more vulnerable position is just not viable for us.

"It makes us sad."

She added "if we could have all of our children coming in for the half an hour before school, and we could give them all food and there was no cost implication, we would do it in an instant".

Both Lancashire County Council and the Department for Education said the school had joined the pilot as planned.

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Education Secretary Phillipson said: "This'll make such a big difference to parents, putting money back into their pockets at a time when parents are still really facing the squeeze, so more choices at the start of the working day and the school day, but, crucially, how we boost children's life chances.

"There is funding behind it - £30m – tripling the investment in breakfast clubs and the funding that runs alongside it is far more generous than what had gone before in previous schemes."

Clarification 28 February: This story has been updated to clarify the school's position on the scheme and their involvement in it.