On Friday a Labour MP for York, Rachael Maskell submitted a written question and the title of the question is “Pupils: Breakfast Clubs” and her question which is relatively short is “To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent assessment of the impact of children (a) not eating breakfast and (b) having access to a school breakfast club on educational outcomes.” The Government Minister who responded to the answer is David Johnston who is a member of the State of Education session. The whole of his response is shown below but he focused on FareShare along with “Magic Breakfast, Kellogg’s and Greggs”. It will be very interesting to see if he is willing to promote FareShare within the Government. The question and answer can be seen from here and this is his response.

​​​The government is committed to continuing support for school breakfasts. The department is investing up to £30 million in its national school breakfast programme until the end of the summer term in 2024. This funding will support up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas and is currently supporting approximately 350,000 children a day from low-income families with free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing, and readiness to learn.

​Alongside the department’s national programme, there are a number of organisations such as FareShare, Magic Breakfast, Kellogg’s and Greggs providing valuable support to schools with a breakfast provision.

​The 2019 breakfast evaluation report conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation found that Year 2 children in breakfast club schools made the equivalent of two months’ additional progress compared to Year 2 children in the business-as-usual control group. Additionally, pupil behaviour improved in breakfast club schools, therefore enhancing their readiness to learn and improving classroom environments.

​At the end of this iteration of the programme the department will be working with its delivery partner Family Action to produce and publish an impact report which will include analysis such as how a school breakfast club has impacted children’s educational outcomes.