An angry mum said she was thinking about moving her daughter to a different school after a primary said it was planning to charge for its breakfast club. The school had run a free breakfast club for years, looking after children for 45 minutes before the school day proper began.
Over the past two years, since Covid restrictions first came into being, it had stopped providing food as part of the service. However, with no restrictions now in place, it plans to start offering food once more and charge £2 per session.
In a letter seen by Hull Live, which first reported the story, Longhill Primary School said that it wasn't able to fully subsidise the club on its budget and charging a small fee brought it into line with other schools. But one mum who has a daughter at the school said: "£1 would have been a push, but £2 is pure greed."
"My daughter goes to Longhill Primary School and I rely on breakfast club there to enable me to get to work and provide," she said. "We're going to be the most expensive breakfast club in Hull, by the looks of it. From what I can see from every other school I've done my research, it's like £1 or £1.50. And this is for a 45-minute period."
"This may force my hand to move my child school just to save money for the month," she added. "Cutbacks need to happen, but I did not think moving school would be one of them."
According to the mum, it has also been indicated to a parent of kids on free school meals who attend Longhill Primary that the charge will apply to all, regardless of being in receipt of free school meals. The £2 charge per session will not make Longhill Primary's breakfast club the most expensive in Hull, though there are several local primaries which currently advertise the service including food at a cheaper rate or for free, or for no charge for recipients of free school meals.
In a letter to parents and carers from the school's executive headteacher and the head of school dated Friday, June 17, Longhill Primary announced the change from next school term: "From September we are going to change the way Breakfast Club is run as the school are no longer in a position to offer this service free of charge.
"We are going to offer a Breakfast Club with a choice of toast or cereals at a cost of £2 per session. The money will cover the full cost of the food and will contribute to the cost of the staffing. We do appreciate that this is an additional cost, but the school budget is not in position to fully subsidise staffing and this brings Longhill in line with other schools."
The mum who contacted Hull Live said there had been a survey sent out to parents a couple of weeks ago asking for views on options for the Breakfast Club's future. This included bringing back food, with an estimated cost per session of £1.
"They could do the £1. Prices have gone up, we understand that, but to go from a free service to £2 and not actually comply with other schools?"
She also would be in favour of the service remaining free for those who did not want to take up the food option: "Obviously, they're used to going to breakfast club every day, so they're used to having breakfast before they go to breakfast club. So they're probably still going to want to continue doing that, so they're paying for breakfast that they're probably not going to eat."
Nationally, government funding for breakfast clubs at schools in deprived areas of England is to be cut after July. The national school breakfast club programme provides eligible schools with a 100% subsidy and breakfast supplies at no cost to the school. The subsidy is set to be reduced to cover 75% of non-breakfast supply costs.
