Education Endowment Foundation:Magic Breakfast – trial

Magic Breakfast – trial

Magic Breakfast
Implementation costThe cost estimates in the Toolkits are based on the average cost of delivering the intervention.
Evidence strengthThis rating provides an overall estimate of the robustness of the evidence, to help support professional decision-making in schools.
Impact (months)The impact measure shows the number of additional months of progress made, on average, by children and young people who received the intervention, compared to similar children and young people who did not.
+2
months
Project info

Independent Evaluator

The Institute for Fiscal Studies logo
The Institute for Fiscal Studies
A free, universal, before-school breakfast club
Pupils: 8600 Schools: 100 Grant: £425,967
Key Stage: 1, 2 Duration: 3 year(s) Type of Trial: Effectiveness level evidence
Completed January 2017

This is an updated project page. The original report was published in November 2016, with an update to the report in December 2019. Differences between the two reports are clearly detailed in the updated project report.

The Magic Breakfast project provided schools with support and resources to offer a free, universal, before-school breakfast club, including to all Year 2 and Year 6 pupils. The aim of the project was to improve attainment outcomes by increasing the number of children who ate a healthy breakfast.

Magic Breakfast

At the time of funding this project there had been considerable interest in school meals, including the introduction of universal infant free school meals and breakfast club pilots in England, and new policy on breakfast provision in Wales. We funded this project because despite the policy interest, there was limited evidence of the impact of breakfast clubs on attainment. This study was a control group study

Our updated evaluation found that supporting schools to run a free of charge, universal breakfast club before school delivered an average of 2 months’ additional progress for pupils in Key Stage 1 with moderate to low security. An impact on attainment was not seen for pupils in Key Stage 2. Interestingly, it appears that it was not whether more pupils ate breakfast at all that made the difference, but whether more were going to the school breakfast club. It may be that school breakfasts are more nutritious, or that attending the club effectively prepares pupils for learning. Breakfast club schools also saw an improvement in pupil behaviour and attendance.

Schools considering providing breakfasts may want to focus on Key Stage 1 pupils if their primary aim for doing this is raising attainment and they should also aim to deliver a breakfast club similar to the model tested here: free, universal and before school

  1. Year 2 children in breakfast club schools made the equivalent of two months’ additional progress compared to Year 2 children in the business as usual control group. This result has a low to moderate security rating. These results are similar to the original results, although they are now less secure.
  2. There is no evidence that breakfast clubs had an impact on Year 6 pupil outcomes. This result has moderate to high security. Compared to the original results, the effect size for Year 6 pupils is lower and less secure.
  3. The findings suggest that, where improvements are seen, it is not just eating breakfast that delivers improvements but attending a breakfast club. This could be due to the content of the breakfast itself or to other social or educational benefits of the club.
  4. Pupil behaviour, as measured by a teacher survey, improved in breakfast club schools. This is interesting because it shows that breakfast clubs may improve outcomes for children who do not even attend breakfast club by improving classroom environments. This key conclusion is unchanged from the original report.
  5. Activities thought to increase take-up of the breakfast provision included promoting it to parents and encouraging all children to attend while sensitively targeting pupils most likely to benefit. The project required additional staff time which some schools found difficult to provide without charging for breakfast. This key conclusion is unchanged from the original report. All findings from the process evaluation are unaffected by the error in the impact evaluation.
Outcome/​Group
ImpactThe size of the difference between pupils in this trial and other pupils
SecurityHow confident are we in this result?
KS1 Maths
+2
Months' progress
KS1 Reading
+2
Months' progress
KS1 Writing
+2
Months' progress
KS2 Reading
0
Months' progress
KS2 Maths
0
Months' progress