KickStart Breakfast is a community partnership initiative between Sanitarium, Fonterra and the Ministry of Social Development that provides Weet-Bix and milk for more than 42,000 children in 1400 schools in New Zealand.
Tisbury School in Invercargill recently began its breakfast club and principal Andrea Joyce said about 10 children had already been taking advantage of the programme and it had shown its effects in the classroom.
"The feedback from teachers is that there’s a few there that come that are more settled so they’re ready to learn.
"If a child is full and got food and had something to eat they’re a lot calmer."
Ms Joyce said the breakfast club filled a gap between the start of the day and breaks for eating during the rest of the day.
Some pupils woke up at 7.15am to catch the bus to school and might have either had breakfast really early or not at all because they were in a rush to leave home, she said.
The breakfast club was open from 8.15am-9am so it gave the pupils an opportunity to have a top-up before their brain food break at 10am, Ms Joyce.
The programme was free of cost for the school and the pupils, and no questions were asked about why pupils came in for it.
"You may think this is something a wee country school may not need but actually I was surprised.
"There is that little need and if we can fill that need then it makes me happy," Ms Joyce said.
