Children who do not qualify for free school meals come to school with moldy bread, empty wrappers and, in some cases, nothing, according to teachers who told The Guardian they had never seen such desperation in the communities they served they serve
The harrowing accounts of widespread hunger in classrooms come as analysis by the Liberal Democrats found that more than 100,000 children in England could be missing out on free school meals (FSM) at a time when costs have soared.
“The government is stealthily stealing school lunches from children,” said Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrats’ education spokeswoman. He argued that if the £7,400 limit on family income had been raised in line with inflation, it would now be set at £8,575, making up to 110,000 more children eligible.
School leaders say they are shocked by the dismal packed lunches they are seeing in classrooms as desperate parents struggle to feed their children. One student brought a cup of leftover plain rice and another brought nothing but a small tub of dry cereal for breakfast.
Others arrive at school with just one bar of chocolate, after their parents give them a pound to buy something for lunch, while many from low-income families arrive at class tired and apathetic because their stomachs are empty .
“I’ve been in education now since 2006 and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Sarah Livesey, headteacher at Oasis Academy Leesbrook in Oldham, Greater Manchester. “We are in the worst situation we have ever been in. Even with Covid, I think this is our most difficult time.”
Livesey’s school is in an area with one of the highest levels of deprivation in the country. Some families are newly arrived asylum seekers for whom language and internet access are barriers to applying for free school meals. Others have universal credit and are struggling to make ends meet but still don’t meet WSF criteria.
“Some of our families will sacrifice their own meals to ensure their children can eat,” Livesey said. “Some are struggling to provide breakfast, so we provide breakfast to all our children.”
Kids arrive early for the free, unlimited breakfast, with the hungriest students devouring three bowls of cereal and two bagels. “So if they’re not entitled to free school meals and their packed lunch isn’t as big as we’d like it to be, at least they’ve had a decent breakfast,” Livesey said.
Jamie Oliver and Marcus Rashford are among a growing list of celebrities campaigning for wider access to free school meals, the latest being former One Direction singer Zayn Malik. He relied on free school lunches as a child growing up in Bradford and is now an ambassador for the Food Foundation, supporting its Feed the Future campaign which would extend free lunches to the 800,000 children in benefit families who currently do not meet the requirements
In England, children from Reception to Year 2 receive universal free school meals. The Scottish and Welsh governments have gone further and are committed to rolling it out to all primary school pupils.
New figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions show that 1.07 million children aged five to 16 in England live in households below the current income ceiling of £7,400 after tax and benefits, according to the Liberal Democrats , but which had increased in line with inflation 1.18 million children would be below the threshold.
“Every year ministers continue this callous policy, thousands of children in working families, struggling to make ends meet, lose out,” Wilson said. “Freezing the threshold is a moral, economic and political failure, trapping families in poverty as the cost of living crisis hits.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “We understand the pressures many homes are under. That’s why we’re supporting more children and young people than ever before.
“More than a third of pupils in England currently receive free school meals in educational settings and we are investing up to £24 million in our national school breakfast programme, which provides free breakfasts to children in schools in areas disadvantaged”.
School officials say parents aren’t just struggling to feed their children; keeping school uniforms clean is also a challenge, as some students arrive in wet blazers because their homes are too cold to dry washed clothes. Teachers discreetly take away wet clothes and dry them during the school day.
At OA Leesbrook, there are industrial-sized washing machines available for parents who need them, regular morning coffees to provide warmth, a cup of tea and a biscuit, as well as English and cookery classes to try and help parents keep their families
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Elsewhere, teachers said some parents were struggling to raise their children in substandard housing. At a primary school in Oldham, a mother who reported a mouse infestation was sent on accident and emergency by school staff after her baby was bitten on the ear and hand while the family slept . Meanwhile, lice are rampant because parents can’t afford to buy treatments.
Greg Oates, headteacher of Beever Primary School in Oldham since 2001, said: “The vast majority of our children are eligible for free school meals and many of the children who are not on FSM are very, very near the threshold..
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“We’re getting kids into school maybe not having breakfast. Sometimes the packed lunches are a little thin, there’s not a lot.
“We have seen several times that a child opens his takeaway lunch and the bread blooms. Parents try to make a loaf of bread last as long as possible. We saw it and took it away and gave them a school dinner. I would love for everyone to have access to school dinners and I would like school dinners to be much better funded.”
With the price hike, the cost of a school lunch has risen from £2.50 a day to £2.70. In the past, parents have gone into debt during lunches, so the school is now more proactive, trying to keep parents out of debt. “In the past we had to write things. We just had to shoulder the cost of that as a school.”
Oates remembers a time when more funding was available, when children’s centers and early intervention made a difference to vulnerable people in the community where she works, with children seen by school nurses and specialists when needed.
Things have changed. “What we’re seeing is the eradication of public services,” Oates said. “As a school we have become the focal point of everything. We go far above what a school’s competence should be. To me it’s symptomatic of how society is collapsing.”
Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, accused the government of “abandoning families” and pledged that a Labor administration would fund free school breakfasts for primary school pupils.
“The ongoing scandal of so many children arriving at school hungry is the serious real-world impact of the Tories crashing the economy,” Morgan said.
Amanda Chadderton, leader of Oldham council, said: “Food poverty is at crisis levels for many people in Oldham. For some children, free school meals are the only hot meal they get in a day, and the thought of school holidays sends parents into a panic.
“When I became leader of Oldham council I made children and young people one of my top priorities, alongside tackling the cost of living crisis. “But whatever we do, it’s unlikely that is enough So, on behalf of the residents of Oldham, I urge the incoming Government to do more to help our children and parents who are struggling with food poverty and prevent more families falling on the breadline.”