Chief reporter for the Observer, Tracy McVeigh visited Magic Breakfast at Mitchell Brook Primary School in Brent to understand the impact breakfast club closures will have.

Mitchell Brook primary school's breakfast club in north London, above, has helped improved pupil performance. From left, Jessica Thomson, eight, Chardonnay Rowe, eight, James Costello, 10, and Ricardo Harrison, eight, tuck in. Photograph: Alex Sturrock For The Observer

Theresa Landreth, headteacher of Mitchell Brook Primary School in North West London, is worried.  ‘She’s in there now, one of our next Prime Ministers, having breakfast…’ Landreth believes that without the breakfast club provided by the Magic Breakfast charity, the children in her school will not get the chance to attain their full potential.  And breakfast clubs are under threat of closure.  New research suggests one in eight of Britain's breakfast clubs closed this year and half of those remaining are under threat as schools face budget cuts

‘Breakfast club has transformed our school…Behaviour, attendance and performance at Mitchell Brook have dramatically improved.’

Carmel McConnell Founder of Magic Breakfast ‘[believes] we can look at deprived schools and shake our heads… or we can get in there and help…Our schools each get around £4,000 worth of food each year; it costs about 22p a day per child. We know it makes a massive difference to the child [their future attainment] and to the school. We call breakfast fuel for learning, and all the research shows how vital it is.

Magic Breakfast currently supports over 200 breakfast clubs in England with valuable food aid to help schools reach the children arriving at school hungry, and in addition is helping schools to develop their own fundraising capability. Once they can stand alone we can go forward and help other children in other schools. "Politicians simply do not understand that children are going hungry. Children in Britain today, right here. Come and sit down in this school and then try to tell us we can do without a breakfast club."

Read the full article featured in The Observer here