Teachers ‘forced to help clothe and feed children’

EXAM results have become a ‘secondary consideration’ for some deprived schools because they have to concentrate on simply feeding and clothing pupils, teachers have warned.

School staff revealed they regularly take children for a morning shower, wash their clothes and give them free food as they have not had that basic care from their parents.

Many have created clothes banks at their schools to supplement uniform – with some pupils even wearing it at the weekend as they have no other clothes. Teachers also go to second-hand shops at the weekend to buy beds for children forced to sleep on the floor at home.

Members of the National Education Union working in the UK’s most deprived areas said these extra challenges made it difficult for them to concentrate on exam results. Jane Jenkins, who works in an inner city primary in Cardiff, said: ‘When people are asking you about standards and you know, “why is your school not higher in the league tables”, often that is very much a secondary consideration for us these days.

‘We supplement, regularly, packed lunches that children bring. Some have a slice of bread with some margarine – that’s all they have... Staff are bringing in extra things and we are trying to support that as a school as much as we can.’

And Louise Regan, a teacher from Nottinghamshire, explained: ‘Because of the cuts to other services, we are expected to be everything – social workers, carers, doctors, we have to deal with every issue as well as all the other things the Government wants us to do.’

But last year the all-party parliamentary group on hunger found child poverty is often caused by a range of factors, with low income and access to services just one.

Others included parents’ chaotic work patterns as well as their poor budgeting and cooking skills.