The clubs provide breakfast and a safe place to study before lessons begin, as part of a government initiative to extend educational provision beyond the traditional school day. The scheme seeks to overcome the link between poor diet and underachievement at school.

But researchers from the New Policy Institute say that the clubs, which were intended to support children from deprived areas, have not reached enough pupils and that the government should provide more funds.

At present, the institute says that only 27,000 pupils are using the breakfast clubs - with an expansion held back by the costs to schools and charges to parents.

According to research from the New Policy Institute, a tenth of pupils go to school without a meal in the morning and a sixth do not have a cooked meal when they get home - a nutritional deficit which the institute says breakfast clubs could help to tackle.