For the past five years children at a Newcastle primary school have been getting a healthy start to their day with breakfast.
| Breakfast’s like putting petrol in a car. If you don’t then it will stop. |
The West Walker Primary School Breakfast Club regularly attracts dozens of youngsters who are keen to get their teeth into something nourishing before lessons start.
"It's good for people who are always late for school", says Nicole Calino, 11, "so they don't get wrong off their teachers".
It is also a place for children to meet each other and set themselves up for the day on something other than snacks. Grandmother Chris Sweet who runs the Club says that before it was set up most children were coming in to school with packets of crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks. "Now they get a healthy breakfast", she says.
Like all of the volunteers, Chris does not get paid for her time at the Club, but finds it a nice way of filling in time in the morning. "It's a brilliant thing", she says.
The children who go there agree.
"It's good because you get to sit with your friends while you're having breakfast", says 11-year-old Chris Spearman. "You can have a chat and a little laugh".
Paul Anderson, 11, enjoys it for the same reasons. "You can talk to your friends and eat as much as you want", he says.
The children get a choice of foods to eat. There's toast and butter, jam, chocolate spread, tea, hot chocolate, cereals, juices and, what's more, it's all for free. It helps the children realise the importance of starting the day with a breakfast too.
"If you don't have it, you'll be weak" says Paul.
His friend, Michael Watson, 11, says "It's like putting petrol in a car. If you don't then it will stop".
It has reduced mid-morning snacking too. "I eat less snacks at breaktime, because breakfast usually fills me up", says another Breakfast Club devotee, Tariq, 11.
The healthy eating messages from the Breakfast Club are also reinforced in the school curriculum. "We get taught about being healthy in school and so it helps us not to eat unhealthy foods", says Chris Spearman who is concerned about keeping fit so he can continue to play football.
Most of the children we spoke to at the Club say they would have breakfast at home if the club didn't exist, but it just wouldn't be as much fun.
"It would be boring" says Chris, while Nicole thinks it would be "weird" because she wouldn't get to speak to her friends.
It is clearly an enjoyable experience for those who attend, and the Government now plans to create new Breakfast Clubs and expand existing ones, used by some 27,000 pupils across the country.
It might also be a key to better pupil performance, according to the New Policy Institute think-tank which said in a recent report that breakfast at school "can help the child experience the school as a warm and friendly place".
If West Walker Primary School is anything to judge by, it's certainly true.
About the team
This article was produced by editors Gemma Bennett and Stacey Whitaker, 13, and reporters Gavin Mather, 11 and Natasha Crowl, 10. It was published in the Northern Echo.
