Seven breakfast clubs are now up and running across Huddersfield and the wider area at Christ Church Academy, Old Bank, Hillside, Lowerhouses, Netherhall Campus, Spring Grove and Ash Brow schools.

Ash Brow School was the most recent to launch on Monday 4 March and in the first week it served 374 breakfasts and foresees that its numbers will continue to prosper.

Jill Mellor, Learning Mentor at Hillside Primary, this week praised the impact the ‘Early Kick-Off’ breakfasts have made at her school.

“We are very proud to be part of the Early Kick-Off Breakfast Club scheme. Although we already had an existing breakfast club in school, it wasn’t reaching the majority of our families due to the cost. Even though ‘Early Kick-Off’ is still in its early stages, we can already see that we are now reaching families who couldn’t afford to access it before. The fact that we can now offer them a free breakfast makes a huge difference, not only to their child’s education, but to the family as a whole.

“We have also noticed that we are supporting single parent families in returning to work. Childcare is such an expense and many parents feel they are better off not working. By returning to work, parents are raising their own aspirations and providing a positive role model for their children.

“Our attendance officer has reported that the club has had a positive effect on the attendance of one child who lives outside our catchment area. Now she is attending the Early Kick-Off club, her attendance has improved tremendously, which in turn has helped her learning and social development.

“Joining the Early Kick-Off scheme has meant we had to make huge changes to the way we ran our breakfast club, but this has proved to be a positive experience. Despite having more children, staff  have reported that they are less pressured, as we have set routines and structure to the sessions now and they each have their own role. We have a parent and a member of the local community working as volunteers to support school staff.

“The support we have received from both the ‘Early Kick-Off’ team and staff at Total Foodservice has been first class.”

The Town Foundation’s Corporate Fundraising Officer Mandy Taylor added:

“Sustainability of funds is key to the Town Foundation; we need to continuously fundraise to ensure that the ‘Early Kick-Off’ breakfast clubs continue to thrive and deliver nutritious breakfasts to as many children as every club can accommodate for many years to come.

There is a multitude of ways that people can fundraise for the charity; a single or monthly donation, purchasing a prize draw ticket for the Mini Cooper Countryman or by partaking in or staging a fundraising event. The list is endless!”