Focus sur le dispositif des petits déjeuners

In France, since 1981, there has been a priority education network (REP or REP+), covering territories with major social difficulties, which aims to "reduce the achievement gaps between pupils enrolled in priority education and those who are not"^[1]. In 2020, this network is composed of more than 7,000 schools for more than 1.7 million pupils^[1]. Within the framework of this network, food education has been put in place via a "breakfast scheme"^[2] (the school offers a complete and balanced breakfast to the pupils belonging to this network).

This system, in connection with education on food and taste, common to all schools (whether or not they belong to the priority education network), proposes both to compensate for inequalities due to the social context of the pupils and to teach them to consume nutritionally, in particular by understanding the benefits of certain foods compared to others, and by understanding and managing their hunger. This focus highlights the appropriateness of such an approach with the school curricula of each cycle.

A section is devoted to morning snacking and the recommendations that are made. It is this point in particular that questions me. Indeed, having had to monitor the consumption of snacks for my class, a problem that I had not anticipated arose. My school, which was not part of the network, decided to follow the recommendations of this focus and to authorize snacks as long as they consisted only of fresh or arranged fruit (dried fruit, compotes, etc.), thus prohibiting any excess food. However, the majority of my pupils did not respect this rule, and I would like to quickly correct what I have just written: the majority of my pupils' parents did not respect this rule. There is no need to be in a priority education network for food education to be necessary. Moreover, we were imposing a way of eating on families or children with diets that were already their own. For example, this little girl whose parents compartmentalized the daily intake, the school imposed fruit at 10 am; or this child, suffering from cystic fibrosis, who had to eat extremely salty products, how to approach its diet and its snack (often chips) with the other children?

Finally, if we go back to these classroom breakfasts which are a learning tool. What does the teacher use this time for? He must already optimize his time, having breakfast during school hours, certainly it is indispensable if it is not possible at school, but is it the time of another learning that will suffer or is it that we learn by eating? So let the children eat in peace!