Students star in school’s own cereal

RANGEBANK Primary School has started a Breakfast Club to encourage students to regularly eat breakfast.
The school had a trial run last week with its official launch on Monday. The program will be run every Monday from 8am to 8.50am.
Rangebank Primary welfare officer Allan Tibballs said the program had been an “excellent success” with 51 students from prep to grade six participating on Monday.
Mr Tibballs said the aim of the Breakfast Club was to provide a healthy and nutritious breakfast for students who needed it and would help them to be better prepared physically and mentally to learn.
He said a recent survey showed 22 per cent of grade six students and 18 per cent of grade five students did not eat a regular breakfast.
“If I can get one success out of this it’ll be all worth it,” he said.
Mr Tibballs said the school hoped to increase the Breakfast Club to two or three days a week to help stop absenteeism and ensure students were eating breakfast but they would need to find funding for this.
“Our overall absenteeism is around eight per cent but on Mondays this rises to 10 per cent,” he said.
Mr Tibballs said the program, which costs the school about $50 a day, was being funded by collecting milk caps and free dress days, which used to go to charities such as the Tsunami Appeal. The National Australia Bank has donated some money and Red Cross donated cereal.
Mr Tibballs said the school was looking for further support in the community to help expand the program.