Breakfast Clubs
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Greggs Breakfast Clubs are a flagship programme for The Greggs Foundation and one of the key ways in which we support children and families. Our network of Breakfast Clubs run all over England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. From our first club in 1999, we have now grown the network to support more than 75,000 children daily at over 1000 schools.
Breakfast Clubs offer so much more than a breakfast. We give schools the freedom and funds to choose nutritious options for their pupils but, we also make sure they have freshly baked bread donated by their local Greggs shop. Every Breakfast Club is different, feeding small groups to over 100 children each day. But the central principle is the same, they are a safe space for children to eat, spend time with their friends and talk with adults in preparation for the school day.
Running a Breakfast Club
A Breakfast Club costs just £3,500 to set up and run for one year (for an average of 65 children). We prefer to let our schools choose the right nutritional mix of foods to suit their pupils and supply a start-up grant and meet ongoing costs to keep the club running. Our Breakfast Clubs are a place to have fun as well as fill tummies so many clubs often expand their offering with fun activities, including games or sports for extra enrichment opportunities.
We also have funding available to assist with any start-up costs related to cooking equipment and cold food storage.
Additional benefits of a Breakfast Club
All schools in our Breakfast Club network get access to our hardship programme. This programme issues in excess of £1m in grants every year and supports children and families with food and clothing vouchers, as well as beds, bedding and home appliances including ovens, fridge freezers and washing machines.
In 2022, we launched a new education programme with charity Rethink Food, to deliver one million hours of education into schools. This focuses on issues of food security, active lifestyles, healthy eating and sustainability and has a range of resources for teachers to use in school via the free Agents of Change multimedia programme.
Education is one of the most impactful ways to deliver long-term change
We're always looking for ways to add value to our Breakfast Clubs. The schools in our network welcome the opportunity to have dedicated educational resources which can complement areas already touched upon in the existing curriculum.
Agents of Change
Agents of Change is a bespoke educational resource created by Rethink Food for the Greggs Foundation. It introduces a range of key topics in a fun and engaging way for primary school children in year 3 and 4.
To help schools retain flexibility in how to deliver each module, the Agents of Change has been created as a multimedia programme around four key subject areas, including:
Food security
Active lifestyles
Healthy eating
Sustainability
Kobi Nazrul Breakfast Club
Before attending Breakfast Clubs, a pupil would come to school and be quite unsettled, demanding a lot of attention from the teacher and disrupting the flow of the morning routine. They would actively seek interactions with adults. Since attending, they’re more settled at the start of the school day; they’ve typically had significant interaction with adults before entering the classroom, resulting in them being more ready to learn by the time class starts.Teacher feedback from a Breakfast Club school
Easing into the school day at Bishops Primary School
What are the benefits of a Breakfast Club to your school?
There are so many benefits to a school Breakfast Club:
Food security
Knowing that you will receive a breakfast every morning means children are secure in their food intake for the day. Knowing that they won’t go hungry can instill a greater sense of trust and enthusiasm for attending school in pupils.
Focus and attention
Its easy to understand why it can be hard to focus in a busy classroom environment, even more so when you can feel your tummy rumbling. Hunger is such a huge barrier to learning. This is one of the key disadvantages we focus on – we want to give children the resources to thrive in their school life and reach their potential.
Support for working parents
A Breakfast Club can help parents take the stress out of the working week and improve job security knowing you can be at work for 8.30 or 9am every day. We estimate around 70% of the children attending our clubs have at least one parent or guardian working. Knowing their children are safe and having a daily breakfast can really help to manage that morning rush and ensure children are in school on time and ready to learn.
Healthy and nutritious food
We give schools the funding freedom to choose what their pupils would like to eat. Meaning they get a free, healthy and balanced breakfast every morning to suit their own tastes.
Role of our partners
We have over 160 partners and individual supporters who sponsor a number of our Breakfast Clubs. This financial support from the business community is a wonderful way to connect businesses with local schools. Our commercial partners frequently develop a very supportive relationship with schools, often creating design competitions, delivering careers advice and workshops or involving pupils in key business milestones.
Partners are a hugely valuable part of the work we do here at the Greggs Foundation. To learn more about how some of our partners benefit our school network, visit our news hub. If you are interested in becoming a partner of the Greggs Foundation, visit our partner page for a more detailed introduction, or contact Lynne Hindmarch.
A busy morning at Larkspur School Breakfast Clubs
Would you like to join our Breakfast Club network?
We currently only offer Breakfast Clubs to primary schools. The majority of our schools are located in disadvantaged areas where our support is needed the most. Many schools also have a high proportion of children who are eligible for free school meals. If you would like to apply to join our waiting list for a Breakfast Club, please click here.
To learn more about eligibility criteria and how our breakfast clubs run, you can find more information in our FAQs.