Tuesday 24th March 2015

Children at Scunthorpe primary school, Oasis Academy Parkwood, thanked players of People's Postcode Lottery this morning for their breakfast club funding. Players have doubled their award to Magic Breakfast this year - to £200,000 – which supports breakfast provision in 62 schools in the North of England.

Before the funding, the club only had 20 children coming along each morning. Now 80 children start their school day with a healthy Magic Breakfast of porridge, bagels, cereals and fresh juice.

At least 500,000 children in the UK go to school each day too hungry to learn (Source: Nutrition Bulletin). A hungry child can’t concentrate and can be disruptive to the rest of the class. It is estimated that, on average, 66 million minutes of teaching time are being lost every morning dealing with hungry children (Source: Quaker “Feed Their Future” Report, January 2015). Magic Breakfast delivers free, healthy breakfast food to 430 schools in England (7 of which are in the DN postcode region) giving over 17,000 children fuel for learning each school day.

For many pupils at Oasis Academy Parkwood their school’s Magic Breakfast club is a vital source of nutritious food (43% of pupils at Oasis Academy Parkwood are eligible for Free School Meals). Attending breakfast club increases concentration, attainment and attendance, helps with social skills and can play an important part in reducing malnutrition and obesity.

Tracey Norriss, Principal, Oasis Academy Parkwood: “Magic Breakfast has provided us with the opportunity to extend the school day and provide our pupils with the best start to their school day. The overwhelming response from parents, pupils and staff is a real positive one, with parents saying that their children love attending the breakfast club and they know they are getting a healthy and filling breakfast. The pupils love the food and activities and the staff have seen a real difference in the children’s concentration and behaviour when they attend Breakfast club. This has become a real positive and enjoyable part of our school life and we would like to thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for the funding to enable us to embed this fantastic initiative”.

Clara Govier, Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “It is lovely to see the positive difference that eating a healthy Magic Breakfast makes to a child’s day and we are delighted to be able to double the award from players this year to ensure that even more children across the North of England benefit”.

As soon as breakfast had been eaten at Oasis Academy Parkwood this morning, a team of older children, who help out as breakfast buddies, led a dance troop of breakfast club pupils. Millie (age 9), one of the breakfast dance leaders said: “We wanted to find a way to keep all the little ones entertained so decided to lead a dance troop and each term we choose a new song. I get so many hugs from children that my back hurts!”

The children then cut a healthy cake made by Magic Breakfast's nutritionist to celebrate the success of the breakfast club and thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for making it possible.