Free school breakfast clubs for primary pupils

This article is part of our series of briefings on The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

One of the new duties included within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, is a duty on all schools providing primary education to arrange a free breakfast club for pupils in years Reception to Year 6. 

The duty applies to maintained schools, academies, pupil referral units and alternative provision academies as well as non-maintained special schools. The duty itself on the trust or governing body is to arrange the breakfast club, so it doesn’t have to be provided directly by the trust or governing body.

“Must be provided each school day for at least 30 minutes”

The breakfast club must be provided each school day, last at least 30 minutes and end immediately before the first school session. It also needs to include breakfast that meets the School Food Standards. Readers may also want to note that the Bill separately includes provisions to apply the School Food Standards to all academies. This duty has been a contractual requirement in academy funding agreements for some time but will now become a statutory obligation for all.

The breakfast club does not have to be provided on the school site itself but does need to be in the ‘vicinity’ of the school, so could for example be provided for a junior school at the neighbouring infant school.

What schools need to consider

Most schools are not likely to object to this proposal, but key to it will be the funding and resources that come with the new requirement. The DfE has been running an early adopter scheme with 750 schools since April 2025, with improved funding rates since that began following their feedback.

Whilst the commencement date of this new requirement is not set out in the Bill itself, DfE plans to begin the national rollout from April with another 2,000 schools, before the likely full rollout later this year.

Exemptions

There is provision for the Secretary of State to exempt a school from the breakfast club requirement, where providing the breakfast club would seriously prejudice the efficient use of resources or would be contrary to the best interests of the primary pupils at the school. 

Before any application is made, the school would need to consult with parents and the local authority to get their views. A publicly available list of schools that have been granted an exemption will be made available, likely on the DfE website.

Statutory guidance will be provided to cover the practicalities of the breakfast clubs and the considerations of the Secretary of State in relation to exemption decisions, likely to be based on the national phase 1 rollout guidance. As it will be statutory guidance, schools will have to have regard to it when carrying out the duty to arrange a breakfast club.

Find out more about The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill