Abstract

This paper reviews the academic literature that has been published on children’s breakfast consumption and the impact of school breakfast clubs on children’s diet, health, and educational success. In showing an overall positive impact – particularly on children’s health, but with some encouraging signs too of a correlation between school breakfast club
provision and improved cognitive skills, test results, attendance, punctuality, relationships, and behaviour – the paper also seeks to locate this policy initiative within the broader context of social norms and psychosocial factors which influence breakfast consumption. It is that broader context, alongside a determination to ensure this educational intervention provides the best possible value for money, which leads us to conclude that school breakfast provision must be fully integrated into the school day and aligned with budgets for free school meals and after-school provision. The UK Government has given a welcome commitment to extend the National School Breakfast Programme until March 2021. The Programme is delivered by Family Action and Magic breakfast and aims to increase the number of school breakfast clubs in a certain number of deprived areas. This paper attempts to illustrate the path to an effective longer-term strategy which produces optimal outcomes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, their families, and taxpayers.