Our free email updates are the best way to get headlines direct to your inbox Our free email updates are the best way to get headlines direct to your inbox A Nottinghamshire headteacher is "keeping a close eye" on the government's school breakfast club scheme to make sure his site is being given enough money to run one. A handful of schools across the country that were set to take part in the free breakfast programme as 'early adopters' dropped out ahead of the first rollout on Tuesday (April 22). The early adopter schools will be used to test the scheme before a nationwide rollout to all primary schools at a later date. The programme means parents will benefit from their children getting a free breakfast as well as 30 minutes of free childcare, given that they can drop them off up to half an hour before school starts. (Image: Reach PLC/Oliver Pridmore) Duncan White has been the Executive Headteacher at the Wood's Foundation C of E Primary School for four years. The school, in the Gedling village of Woodborough, is one of 14 schools across Nottinghamshire taking part in the early adopter scheme. The site already has a breakfast club running from 7.30am right up until school starts at 9am, but parents have to pay £6.67 for that one. The government's scheme means the school is now offering a secondary breakfast club from 8.30am which is completely free for parents. Mr White said: "We've joined the early adopter scheme because we want to make a difference and help our families out. We believe we're a school that's got the community at the heart of its core purpose. "This morning we've got 44 children enjoying the scheme. Families have dropped the children off at 8:30 and then obviously gone on to work, which has helped everybody out. "Last term we were running at 30 children, we've got 44 this morning. So that's an additional 14 today. "It is the first day of term, so it will take time to settle down. We anticipate to get more numbers as we move forward." Mr White says the Department for Education are providing 60p worth of funding per child at the school to deliver the free breakfast club, as well as around £1,000 per term to buy provisions like food and plates. Asked if this was enough, Mr White said: "We're just keeping a close eye on it because we don't want to go into a deficit in terms of funding it ourselves, because obviously for 60p you've got to heat the building, you've got to put the staffing in place. "Because we've got the pre-existing breakfast school, we believe we'll be able to incorporate it into our day-to-day practice, but if I was setting up the scheme from scratch, I'd be keeping a very close eye on the funding because I wouldn't want to fund a Department for Education project and then fall into a deficit budget." Labour said there were originally 13 schools set to take part in the early adopter scheme from Nottinghamshire, two in the city and 11 in the county, out of around 750 schools across the country. The government confirmed on Tuesday that this had now gone up slightly. (Image: Reach PLC/Oliver Pridmore) The city schools taking part remain the same, whilst there are two extra schools in the county and one school that has dropped out. The government listed the Mattersey Primary School as a Nottinghamshire school taking part, but that site is in Doncaster. The government has so far committed £30 million to the scheme and of the 180,000 pupils covered by the early pilot scheme, 67,000 attend schools in deprived areas. Delivering the free breakfast clubs was a key manifesto commitment from Labour in the 2024 election campaign and to mark the initial launch, cabinet ministers were sent to schools taking part across the country. The cabinet minister selected to visit the the Wood's Foundation C of E Primary School on Tuesday was John Healey, the Defence Secretary. Asked if he was confident that the government were providing enough funding for the scheme, amid criticism from some teaching unions, Mr Healey said: "Mr White has said the funding's sufficient. "More importantly, the flexibility about how they can use the funding. In this case, here at this school with a breakfast club they already had going, this allows them to expand it, bring in more kids and bring in the pre-school next door as well. For families who've got youngsters at pre-school as well as kids at the school here, they can drop them off together. "I wouldn't expect the headteacher to say anything else than that he's keeping a close eye on the finances, but part of the reason for doing 700 as early adopters is that we test it. We can see in different schools the fit will be different. "I'm really confident it'll work in almost all of them, in some it may not, and we'll learn from those lessons as well." Mr Healey spent time on Tuesday morning talking to many of the children benefitting from the breakfast club and was accompanied on his visit by Gedling's Labour MP, Michael Payne. The Defence Secretary said: "The kids themselves, including some here for the first time in a breakfast club, like the fact that they're here with their friends. They've found themselves eating fruit for breakfast, their choice, so it's a win-win. "For us as a new government, this was a promise we made to the the public at the election last summer and this is one of more than 700 across the country delivered on this first day of the summer term." The government has not yet confirmed a precise timeframe for when the free breakfast club programme will be rolled out to all primary schools, but Mr Healey added: "I know that Bridget Phillipson, who's education secretary, wants to see this tested during the summer term here and in the other schools, and she will want to see it rolled out as quickly as she can across the country." Below are the Nottinghamshire schools taking part in the pilot scheme: Nottingham – 2 Crabtree Farm Primary and Nursery School – (Nottingham North) William Booth Primary and Nursery School – (Nottingham East) Nottinghamshire – 12