Dozen schools among first for free breakfast clubs

More than a dozen schools in Gloucestershire will soon be able to provide free breakfast clubs to families as part of a government scheme.

Rosary Catholic Primary School in Stroud is one of those that has been running a small breakfast club for two years but has been awarded government funding from April as part of a pilot.

Parents and teachers there say "there is a need" and it helps create sense of community.

A total of 750 schools across the country are party of the first phase of funding, with the government pledging to eventually offer free daily breakfast clubs to all schools in England.

Micaela Ainsworth has three children at Rosary Catholic Primary School and will soon be changing jobs, meaning an earlier start.

"It does mean a bit of security, a bit of safety knowing that they are fine and I can leave them and not have to worry," she said.

Lilly Stanislas, a single mother whose son has been part of the limited pilot, said: "It's really hard to get them ready in the morning, I have to get to work and it's the last thing I can worry about," she said, adding: "It's such an amazing thing that they are doing."

Teachers have found the club also helps provide a sense of community, with older children in the school looking out for the younger children.

"The little children make bonds with the older children who look out for them in the wider school family," said teaching assistant Gina Wilson.

Headteacher Jenefer Knighton said they had wanted to open up the club to the rest of the school for "a long time".

"We know that the need has been here, we just haven't had the funding to be able to do it because, until now, we have been paying for it all ourselves, we haven't charged the parents at all."