Making sure children get a healthy start in life provides plenty of challenges to schools

For the children in Year Six, it's a week they will never forget. This has been their home from home for the past seven years; it has helped make them who they are as they get ready to embark on the next chapter of their young lives - big school.

- ROB HARRIES

“We've got three days left but one of those is a trip so really we've only got two days left!” one of the pupils explained during the final week of the summer term.

One of the main ways that primary schools have such a huge influence on young children is related to health and wellbeing. Indeed, at Ysgol Bryn Teg, the school’s core values are “Respect, Wellbeing and Independence”, while the motto here is “Reach for the Stars”.

Yet the harsh realities of life in 2025 mean that sometimes reaching for the stars is harder than it sounds. For some parents, being able to provide a healthy and nutritious breakfast for their children is a challenge, be it for financial or purely practical reasons. Yet for pupils, it is probably the most important part of their day.

Ysgol Bryn Teg is one of hundreds of schools to have received a grant from supermarket giant Tesco to help them provide their pupils with healthy food at different times of the day. The supermarket’s Stronger Starts programme provides more than £8m a year of financial support to community groups and schools.

According to Tesco, almost 80% of schools in the UK are struggling to provide food for pupils due to limited budgets.

In Wales, more than 50 million free school meals have been served in primary schools since 2022. While that is a huge help to schools and parents alike, the reality of poverty faced by some still throws up different challenges when it comes to feeding pupils and helping them to live healthy lives.