Starving kids eating loo roll CHARITY REVEALS HIDDEN BRITAIN’ SHOCK
Dad dreads expense of high school
A COUPLE have told how they are “dreading” the day their youngsters go to high school because of the huge extra expense it will entail.
Howard and Karen Callaway say the costs of school uniforms are already hanging over them and they will struggle to pay for branded outfits.
The couple, from Hull, say they already scrimping and saving to find the £ 150 needed for each child’s official primary school gear.
And although the primary school has been understanding, dad Howard fears by the time children Eddison, six, and Loveden, five, are ready for high school the couple will be struggling to pay.
Howard said: “We are really lucky because their primary school understands not everyone will be able to afford the badged uniform.
“The school is quite relaxed so long as the kids are wearing the right colours.
“We spent about £150 on each child, including school shoes.
“But it’s sometimes hard to buy the cheaper stuff for Eddison because, being autistic, he doesn’t like some of the fabrics.
“Even although they are years from high school, we feel the cost of secondary school is already hanging over us.
“We know the uniforms for both the local secondaries are between £200 and £300 and it fills us with dread.
“I don’t even want to think about how CHILDREN scavenge in bins for food and eat toilet paper to beat hunger, an expert claims.
And the loss of free school meals during the summer is said to be compounding the problem.
Data released by Meals for More shows that up to 4.1 million youngsters are at risk of “holiday hunger”.
The Department for Work and Pensions figures, collated by the charity, reveals 53 per cent are under five, up from 51 per cent last year, and 700,000 are in “severe” poverty, up from 600,000.
Laurence Guinness, chief executive of the Childhood Trust, said: “These figures are horrifying – we know children are going hungry and yet we are failing to adequately address the problem. The fact children in a prosperous country like Britain cannot get enough to eat is shocking – and it makes empty promises by politicians in this context obscene.”
Mr Guinness was recently in a school between kids when it comes to designer gear.
“But why can’t we just buy the colours without the fancy badges? We simply can’t afford them.”
Eddison and sister Loveden attend Dorchester Road Primary in Hull, where the badged uniform includes yellow or blue polo shirts at £7.50 and blue fleeces for £12.
Youngest sibling Harlan, three, is too young to go to school yet.
Howard says the family “cannot justify” the items with the school logo and buy mainly from Asda. Polo shirts sold in their local supermarket cost £2.50 for two and blue jumpers cost £6. where an eight-year-old ate toilet paper to stave off hunger pains, saying it “makes my tummy pain go away”.
The charity boss added: “This is hidden Britain and it breaks your heart to see it.” Experts blame the huge numbers of children in poverty – defined as families with an income less than 60 per cent of the national average – on successive cuts to benefits and tax credits together with rising housing costs and low wages.
Education Minister Gavin Williamson will hold a top-level meeting this month to discuss ways in which holiday breakfast and lunch clubs can be more available.
Experts he will meet include former welfare reform minister independent MP Frank Field, who is the co-founder of the charity Feeding Britain.