Teachers estimate that a shocking three quarters of children arrive at school hungry. There are fears that the situation will only get worse as the cost of living continues to spiral.
Dairy co-operative Arla commissioned a survey of 500 primary school teachers in the UK as it works with a charity called Magic Breakfast to donate enough milk to fill 9.5million bowls of cereal to schools across the country. The survey found that teachers believed that 76% of children arrived at school hungry.
It also found that 81 per cent reported that children struggled to concentrate on schoolwork if they arrived with an empty stomach. The teachers said that common effects included children becoming moody (75%) and 67% of teachers said that children felt lethargic by mid-morning.
Danny Micklethwaite from Arla said: “No child should have to start the day hungry and it’s devastating that these cases are only growing. The importance of starting the day with a healthy breakfast is well documented and we’ve all experienced the difficulty of trying to concentrate on an empty stomach.
"Yet Arla is aware too many schoolchildren start each day without receiving the essential nutrients they need to grow and fuel their learning. It’s clear that for many of these children, making the connection between farming and food was a distant thought."
With hunger being a major barrier to learning, the rise in children needing support at breakfast is a real concern for teachers, as 90% felt that breakfast was the most important meal of the day for their pupils, followed by 82% explaining that a child needed a proper breakfast so that they could focus in class and do their best work.
In fact, 47% of teachers said they brought in additional food to offer children something to eat. The top things that teachers felt would help most with the problem of children going to school on an empty stomach included free school breakfasts for children who need them (75%), financial help from the government (55%), more education on why breakfast is the most important meal of the day (30%).
As well as providing milk for 200 of Magic Breakfast’s partner schools, Arla and Magic Breakfast are on a mission to help children better understand the 5w’s of where their milk comes from, how it ends up in their cereal bowls and the work farmers put into making it. In a first for the partnership, Arla opened its barn doors to reveal the farmers responsible behind producing core breakfast staples, like milk, and how it’s made.
Arla invited primary school children to a farm in Yorkshire to see the action unravel, to help them understand nature and how food is produced. Welcoming a school from Leeds, an Arla farmer-owner turned his farm into a classroom to offer an opportunity for children to learn how the milk in their school breakfast clubs goes from farm to fridges.
The survey also found that primary school teachers estimate that up to eight children in their class don't understand where breakfast staples, like milk, come from, whilst nearly half of the pupils said they have never been to an actual farm.
Andrea Doughty, Magic Breakfast team leader (schools), said: “It’s truly devastating that the number of children requiring support at breakfast time is only growing. We need to join forces and come together to provide these children with the food and support needed for their development and to fuel their learning.
"With the help of partners like Arla, we offer a nutritious breakfast to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren every day across the country but with the rising cost of living, sadly the number of children going hungry is only growing. It was wonderful to take children from one of our partner schools in Leeds to an Arla dairy farm and it highlighted the importance of educating children about where their food comes from and making healthy choices. We hope this will be the start of more real-life learning experiences for the children.”
To find out more about Arla and Magic Breakfast’s partnership, visit https://www.arlafoods.co.uk/food-for-thought/arla-and-magic-breakfast/
