The idea of feeding students is not groundbreaking. This year, in our small FE/AP college, however, we’re trying to maximise mealtimes to create opportunities to meet physical, behavioural and relational needs.

For our students, the food itself is important. Many of our cohort have directly come from situations where food may not always have been readily available, and so to provide food is important on a physical level. We believe it’s important for all of our students, though: whether or not you subscribe to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I think most people would agree that if you’re hungry you’re not going to be able to learn as effectively as if you aren’t.

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By providing food for our students we are also able to have some input into the kind of choices they are making and are able to provide nutritionally beneficial food. Although, interestingly, the students who have come from backgrounds where good food was scarce tend to choose far healthier options than you would expect teenagers to go for. We started out by putting out pastries in the morning as a treat, but many of our cohort would rather have a banana! This observation really brought to light the importance of providing good food and how this self-care is important to a lot of the young people we work with, who previously might not have been able to look after themselves as well as they would have liked.

The big breakfast

It is about more than just the food, though. We provide breakfast every day but, actually, a lot of our students aren’t hungry in the morning. Nevertheless, having that time before their lessons start to have a drink and greet everyone is a way for us to build a routine for them, which many of them may not have been able to have in recent years, or at all.

Our college is small and we have a small number of staff. This can be good for our students because we can be flexible in order to adapt to their needs, but it also means that our timetable can change without much notice or that we move things around more often than a mainstream school would. (If a member of staff is off, for example, we can’t often just get someone in to cover.) Creating routine where we can, in the times around lessons that do quite often shift, can be at least a bit helpful to students who may find this flexibility difficult to manage. At least they always know what to expect when they arrive at college.

Not only does this help students who are uneasy with changes in routine, but by doing this, we are also giving all students the message that we are reliable and that we are here to provide for them, which we hope will create a sense of trust in our intentions and our capability to care for them. I really strongly believe that this has value in and of itself, but it also means that when you ask a student later in the day to work on a past paper, for example, they are more likely to believe you when you tell them that it’s for their own benefit.

Student wellbeing and behaviour

This breakfast time also creates a landing space, where students can arrive at college without the anxiety of getting to a lesson on time (there will be no expectations about what time students arrive, as long as they arrive before lessons start) and it provides a transition period between where and whatever they’ve come from and their lesson.

As well as all of this, another major benefit of creating this time for breakfast is that it allows for relationships to develop between not just students from different classes but between students and staff. All staff, not just teachers, will be encouraged to spend time with the students and sit down at our kitchen table to eat with them (or at least in roughly the same area, given the need to be socially distanced at the moment). This gives staff the opportunity to model social behaviour, build relationships and to check in with students. If you have an awareness that a student has had a bad morning, you will be more prepared to work with them in an appropriate way in your lesson than if you didn’t. You can also speak to the student about the issue before you’re on the other side of an argument, trying to get them to do some work.

This time together also shows students that we’re human and that staff have relationships with each other, too, which can model positive interaction. Because we’re being conscious of safety at the moment, only our staff are able to use the equipment in the kitchen. Hopefully in the future students will be able to cook for each other, developing life skills and building relationships by showing each other care, but for now this has been a bit of a blessing in disguise. If students want a hot drink or something from the fridge, they currently have to ask a member of staff. This opportunity to show that we’re happy to serve them (and yet still be an authority in the classroom) I think is beginning to show them the value of kindness, which I hope is something that will continue (and our students will pick up for each other) even after it is strictly necessary.

Even if we teach them nothing else through these changes to the college day, I think that will be time well spent.

Victoria Cunniffe is a FE and alternative provision teacher and counsellor in the UK