Free breakfast schemes in disadvantaged primary schools have mixed impacts

Publication type

Report

Series

MiSoC Explainers

Authors

Publication date

July 13, 2026

Summary:

We study the impacts of free universal breakfast schemes operated in disadvantaged primary schools between 2006 and 2024 with the aim of informing the national roll-out of Free Breakfast Clubs in England.

We use school-level data on the availability of breakfast schemes in England by three major providers: Magic Breakfast, the Greggs Foundation, and the National School Breakfast Programme and link these data to population or nationally representative datasets on children’s or school-level characteristics and outcomes: National Pupil Database, National Child Measurement Programme, and Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).

We use a staggered difference-in-difference design to compare changes in outcomes for earlier adopters with later adopters. This enables us to calculate the difference between observed outcomes for children exposed to a breakfast scheme, with a prediction for what would have happened had they not (yet) introduced the scheme. Our estimates are ‘intention-to-treat’ (ITT), reflecting the effect of universal free breakfast being available rather than the effect of individual take-up. See more detailed results and methodology in our full project report, 'Impact of school breakfast programmes in primary schools in England'.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5526/misoc-2026-002

Subjects

#589111

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  2. Birgitta Rabe

  Report
  July 13, 2026