An extra £11.8 million is being put into a programme which provides healthy breakfasts for around 280,000 disadvantaged school children.
The National School Breakfast Programme (NSPB), which has already created or improved around 1,800 school breakfast clubs, will now involve around 650 more schools, the Department for Education said today.
Schools minister Lord Agnew said: “We want every child to lead a healthy, active and happy lifestyle regardless of their background. That’s why we are giving thousands more children in disadvantaged areas the opportunity to attend a breakfast club, which will help boost attendance, behaviour and attainment, helping them to achieve their best in school.”
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The programme, for which the total investment is now around £35 million, is being extended for another year and aims to kick-start self-sustaining breakfast clubs in schools in disadvantaged areas.
Peter Atherton, deputy head of Deaf Hill Primary, Durham said: “Prior to the NSBP, pupils would arrive to school hungry and late. Now all the children have bagels when they come to school and are always first in line, going to class ready to learn and feeling far more settled.
“Our parents have noticed their children enjoy getting to school on time and the mornings are less stressful.”
Summer holiday funds
The DfE has also today announced a further £9 million to enable more disadvantaged children to have free meals and holiday activities during this year’s summer holiday (2020), but is yet to announce the areas that will benefit from this funding.
The Holiday Activities and Food Scheme follows programmes in 2018 and 2019, which involved charities and community groups providing meals and activities such as football, play sessions and cooking classes for children across the country.
Around 18,000 children benefited in 2018, while around 50,000 children benefitted in 2019.
The DfE has launched a recruitment process to find co-ordinators to run the programme in 2020.
