I’ve heard stories of pupils pretending to eat out of empty lunchboxes to hide from their friends that there was no food at home. That cannot be right in modern Britain.”
This challenge was raised by Munira Wilson MP, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for Education, Children and Families.
It was heartening to hear a commitment to removing hunger as a barrier to learning in Ms Wilson’s speech as well as from MPs and Councillors at the LibDem conference this year. Magic Breakfast attended and had the opportunity to speak on two panels, shining a light on the children and young people arriving at school too hungry to learn.
A lot of the policy discussion and panels were considering the widening disadvantage gap in education. That is, the fact that pupils from less well-off households start school 4.6 months behind their better off peers. This increases to 10.3 months by the time they leave primary school and 19.2 months by the time they finish secondary school. This means that how well you do in education and later in life can be significantly limited by household income and a postcode lottery.
We attended the conference to highlight the impact that Magic Breakfast’s model has been evidenced to have in tackling the disadvantage gap, improving classroom behaviour, supporting attendance, and improved health and wellbeing.
Not only did we want to make MPs, MSPs, and peers aware of the benefits of breakfast, but we also wanted to shine a light on the children and young people who need it most. We work in partnership with more than 100 special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) schools and know that these children and young people particularly need access to stigma and barrier free school breakfasts. We were delighted to be joined by the Head Teacher of one of those schools, Pamela Murphy of Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee School. Pamela spoke passionately on the panel about the need for any school breakfast policy to include children and young people in SEND schools.
We are asking that when the Children’s Wellbeing Bill is debated, that provision extends to all primary aged pupils, including children who attend special schools, in England. This is a key ask in our Breakfast Powers Opportunity campaign.
We know that hunger doesn’t end at age 11. Nearly a quarter of our partner schools are secondary schools, and we were pleased to join a panel discussing policies that could support secondary school pupils. Organised by the Liberal Democrats Education Association and chaired by LibDem spokesperson and teacher Rob Herd we were joined by National Education Union (NEU), Assistant Head Teacher and councillor Cheney Payne, and Calum Miller MP (who is also a school governor). The discussion set out the challenge and where we are today, what the disadvantage gap is, what’s worked, and what more can be done.
It was a sunny few days in Brighton and we were glad to shine some light on the need for school breakfasts, they benefits they can have, and the urgent need to ensure the Children’s Wellbeing Bill helps the children and young people who need it most.
