Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Choice depends on there being provision. At the moment, there is not universal free provision of breakfast clubs for those children—probably their parents, frankly, at that age—who choose that to be the right thing for them. There will not be compulsory attendance at these breakfast clubs, but they will be available for anybody who wants them. I come back to the point about lunch, and reiterate that the Government are already rightly spending a considerable amount of money on providing free school meals at lunchtime for around 3.5 million children and young people. That will remain for those children.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the results of the pilots, can the Minister tell us whether the department, or indeed head teachers, are encouraging children to stay at home to have breakfast, because it is quite valuable for the family unit? I realise that breakfast clubs are an idea, and I am interested to see what the pilots are doing, but this could be run in parallel.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

There is enormous value in families being able to sit down and eat together. My personal experience is that breakfast is not necessarily the most likely time to bring fruitful conversation and calm family time. To reiterate my point, any family who wants to carry on having breakfast together as a family should of course be able to do so. The point is that, for those who want their children to have a smooth start to school, the opportunity to be part of the club for 30 minutes, and the chance to have their breakfast at school, this will be provided through the scheme.

School Accountability and Intervention

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Importantly, as a result of the Big Listen, Ofsted is also publishing as part of the consultation considerably more information on how schools will be assessed. For example, publication of toolkits and the consultations gives schools much more of an opportunity to know the basis on which they are going to be inspected, and more of an idea about what counts as good and where improvement might be needed. My noble friend is right: that will be an important way of ensuring that balance between challenge and an appropriate way for schools to understand what needs to happen in order to improve. We are committed to introducing MATs inspections, and we will engage with the sector and bring forward legislation when time allows. This is an important area, like the Ofsted consultation and the department’s consultation, and we are genuinely open to ensuring that this works appropriately, gets the balance right and ensures that children’s education is being improved.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the proposed five-tier report card for schools is receiving much airtime, but can the Minister tell us what is being done to measure the effectiveness of Ofsted inspectors? This follows on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Knight. Should there not be an appraisal system with report cards, bearing in mind the many negative anecdotes from headteachers about inspections that we have heard about during this short debate, and bearing in mind the sensitivities, particularly with multiple inspections, that affect headteachers?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The quality of the inspections that Ofsted carries out is important, as is the capacity and training of Ofsted inspectors to provide that. That, of course, is the responsibility of the chief inspector and the structures in Ofsted, but I am sure that everybody takes the noble Viscount’s point that there needs to be quality in those who are inspecting our schools, as well as the expected quality in those who are directly delivering education.