Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to extend the breakfast clubs initiative to state-funded early childhood education institutions.

The department is committed to delivering on our pledge to provide free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-aged children, starting with more than 750 early adopter schools from April 2025.

The aim of the breakfast clubs policy includes ensuring children are settled and ready to learn at the start of the school day. This is why we are committed to rolling out breakfast clubs in all state-funded primary schools, helping to build strong foundations in the first years of school, impacting children’s behaviour, concentration, attendance and attainment, alongside supporting parents with costs of childcare.

The department is working to test how this is best implemented and work is already underway with 750 early adopter schools. Early adopters are just the first step in delivering on our steadfast commitment to introducing breakfast clubs in every primary school. Early adopters will not only help us to test and learn how every primary school in the future can deliver these new breakfast clubs, they will also give us important insights into how schools with different age ranges, such as all through schools or those with onsite nurseries, implement the policy.