Children need sustenance and children need role models – enter Olympic Champion and law graduate, Christine Ohuruogu, stage left.
Ohuruogu paid a breakfast time visit to St John’s Church of England Primary School in Bethnal Green supporting the Quaker Oats and Magic Breakfast partnership.
Magic Breakfast operates in schools to provide free breakfasts across primary schools, secondary schools, and SEN centres.
With one in five children experience food insecurity in the UK, according to the Education Endowment Foundation, this kind of programme is more crucial than ever to ensure lower income kids aren’t left behind in a ever increasingly stratified society.
Ohuruogu, 41, is no stranger to school visits – there was a dubious rumour in the staff room that the number has topped 150 since 2012.
The East London local said: “It was my dream just to see all the young people in the borough. It was really a moment for them to just feel that they were part of the story and they won’t be left behind just because the Games had left town.”
On Tuesday morning, Ohuruogu sat with the pupils as they ate breakfast, played boardgames and caught up with their friends.
Being one of eight children, the World and Olympic champion commented on the peaceful environment awaiting the children before classes began.
She said: “I thought it was such a nice idea because the kids come into school to a calm environment. They’re not going straight into the classrooms where they have to start learning. They have a moment to just settle down, eat, socialise with their peers.
“Mornings were quite chaotic in my household. Loads of screaming kids. Parents getting ready for work. So we would often be racing to the school gates to get there before they locked them.”
Ohuruogu also highlighted the positive impact teachers had on her life.
If it weren’t for a teacher telling her to join an Athletics Club at 16 after winning the 800m at School Sport’s Day, she “never would have known” how much she’d love athletics. And Great Britain would have been a fair few world medals lighter.
Ohuruogu said: “I still email one, my form tutor, Mr Bennett. He was with us for the whole five-year journey of school. I think he was a literary genius. He loved reading. Yeah, always telling us about books.
“For me, it was just teachers that just gave you time. That’s all you want. You don’t need any kind of grandeur speech or anything. Just someone that gives you time and says ‘I think you can go there and do that and we’ll be here to support you.’”
One such teacher is Deputy headteacher Bal Jheeta.
With the primary school being located in Tower Hamlets, there is a high rate of food insecurity amongst the pupils which can severely hamper their ability to live a full life and focus fully in school.
Jheet said: “Food is a big, big thing in our school. So whilst the children may worry about where the next meal is coming from, we also have a food bank in school.
“There’s no judgement about if you need to eat more, if you’re really hungry, there’s no one like ‘you can’t’, you just help yourself.”
There is a high mobility rate at the primary school with pupils often only there for a year or so. As a consequence, there are 52 languages spoken at St John’s and Jheeta herself can speak five.
“We’re empowering our children and we’re giving them a voice. So it’s not like ‘I’m too scared to ask’. They can ask any single member of staff.”
“And they usually come to me because I always give the most butteriest bagels.”
The children can choose from bagels, porridge and cereal.
The research suggests it’s working.
Year Two children that consistently take part in Breakfast Club saw two months worth of more progress in comparison to the Year Two children who don’t participate.
Emily Wilkie, Director of Fundraising and Development at Magic Breakfast, said: “We’re showing young people that fuelling your body is the key to unlocking success.
“Together, we want every child and young person to have the ability to reach for their dreams, one breakfast at a time.”
Join the discussion