Success is on the menu at Buckie High's breakfast club
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BREAKFAST is the most important meal of the day, so the saying goes, and it is a message Buckie Community High School have taken to heart.
Since the start of this term, the school have formally unveiled their breakfast club, open to all ages free of charge. It follows a successful trial period last term.
The club is open every day in the school canteen from 8am to 8.45am and is run by volunteer senior students in conjunction with Buckie High Community Larder.
Acting PT RMPS and Raising Attainment Stewart Clelland said that a clear need for the club had been identified across the board at the school.
He continued: "We did a survey in the school and it turned out that 60 per cent of pupils weren't having breakfast for a variety of different reasons.
"By period three in the school day they'll be getting hungry and that affects their concentration, behaviour and, ultimately, their attainment. For those pupils on free school meals, they can't access their daily allowance until 11.30am, so the breakfast club is trying to address this need, too.
"The club aims to cover a wide range of needs. Some pupils we see every day, others we see once a week or so who pop in if they're running late and had to skip breakfast. We get around 30 to 40 pupils a day coming along, which can be for anything from a cup of tea or coffee to a full, healthy breakfast.
"The feedback has been very positive from pupils and it's already had an impact on lateness and behaviour. Hopefully, we should see a positive affect on attainment later on.
"We're basically trying to carry on the good work done by primary schools in providing free breakfasts which has really made a difference."
The club is set to run until the end of this term with efforts under way to make sure that it continues beyond that.
Mr Clelland said: "The breakfast club will definitely run until the end of this term – we have funding from the Pupil Equity Fund to buy food and so on.
"We're currently in the process of applying for other sources of funding so we can keep the club going in the new term after the summer holidays."
He added that the club and its many benefits were being promoted within the school to encourage students to make use of it.
WATCH: Student helpers Emma Cheyne and Leoni Campbell explain some of the many benefits of the breakfast club.
