It is disappointing that the popular breakfast club at Buttershaw First School is threatened with closure for want of the £2,000 a year it costs to run it. Perhaps the local community can rally round to raise the funds to enable this scheme to continue to provide a good start to the day for those youngsters whose breakfast would otherwise consist of a packet of crisps.

It is rather alarming, though, that a need exists in 1999 for a scheme of this sort. Surely cost cannot be an issue. The price of a bowl of cereal and a slice of toast can hardly break the bank, even for the poorest families. It is astonishing that any parent can claim - as some are reported to have done - that they are too busy in a morning to give their children breakfast

The head of the school and the community development worker who organised the breakfast club are to be commended for recognising the need and addressing it. But it is surely an indictment of some parents that they cannot get themselves organised - if that is indeed the case. It seems like a feeble excuse.

This breakfast club, however worthwhile it might be, gets those parents off the hook. More needs to be done as well to impress on them the need to accept responsibility for the welfare of their own children - and that includes getting up early enough to ensure that they set off for school every day with a full stomach.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.