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Video transcript

I love arriving to school and going to breakfast club and once I finish, I come here and read sometimes.

So, our school each morning has several programs which we offer which are all about belonging, transition to school each morning and just connection. The morning program is particularly important for many of our students because it's setting them up to be successful through the rest of the day.

So, it's building that sense of community through calling families in the morning, asking them if they need to live to school and then picking them up on our School Bus Program.

Having a piece of toast in their belly in the morning or coming down to spend some time with friends in the Reading Club before the day starts or just getting to school on our school bus it really does make them successful for the day.

Well, I think that Breakfast Club helps kids connect and collaborate because they can come in in the mornings and they can offer the volunteer behind the counter with me. And usually, a couple of them volunteer at the same time so it gives me a chance to step back and allow the students to work as a team.

Lots of students coming in throughout the day gives the students a chance to communicate with students they don't actually hang out within the play yard. Getting to talk to the people that I don't usually talk to.

It's easy to go up to Breakfast Club nice and quickly and have a chat with my mates before I head down the huddle. When I come to school, and like I haven't had breakfast, I can go to Breakfast Club and get toast and get my brain ready for learning.

When children come to school, they have the opportunity to connect with an adult, connect with their friends in a very friendly environment and families also have the opportunity to come in and know that their children are ready to learn by the time the bell goes at 8.50.

Well, Breakfast Club has been absolutely brilliant because I know that he’s got good food in his tummy before he starts, and I know he's got a good start to the day because he doesn't want to have breakfast at home.

He much prefers to come here, and he's even hooked his little brother into coming as well before he starts kindy. So, we've got two happy boys.

Probably one of the big successes from the morning program, at least for me anyway, would probably be the attendance of some of our students. Historically some of the students accessing the bus service now were sitting around that 60 % mark, whereas at the moment they're above 95%. So not only does that have an impact on their attendance at school, but that also then reaches out into the relationships and the connectedness they have with the school, with their peers and with their educators as well.

Our morning program doesn't just happen. It actually involves a lot of support from our community. So we were very, very fortunate to have people like Kickstart for Kids come on board.

We also partner with Food Bank, who offer us food. We partner with United Way and the Smith Family, who fund our Reading Club through offering us free books that we give to our students after they've had 20 visits to our Reading Club.

End of transcript.

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