Ministers told to see poverty first-hand

A teacher who bought a Christmas dinner and gifts for a family after their benefits were stopped has urged Scottish Government ministers to come to their school to see “how frontline services are being stretched to their limits”.

The anonymous guidance teacher, accompanied by the school’s deputy, went to a supermarket after a tearful mother got in touch, saying she had no presents or food for her son.

In a letter to MSPS on Holyrood’s education committee, who are examining how poverty impacts on attainment and achievement at school, the teacher said: “I would love a government minister to come to my school and shadow me for a week.

“That would give you an insight into poverty in Scotland and how frontline services are being stretched to their limits.”

In a separate submission to the committee, the NASUWT teaching union said “teachers are now regularly giving increasing numbers of children food, clothes and equipment, at their own expense”.

A survey it carried out of teachers in Scotland in 2016 showed 71% had seen pupils coming to school hungry, while 81% noticed youngsters attending classes without the correct equipment, and 79% were concerned about students lacking in energy and struggling to concentrate because of a poor diet.

The Scottish Government’s Pupil Equity Fund is this year providing schools with £120 million – the same amount as in 2017-18 – to help close the attainment gap, with the money going direct to head teachers to determine how it can best be spent.

But the head of English at one secondary school told MSPS: “The PEF money is a sticking plaster – it is merely a re-injection of the money that has been stripped out of Scottish education over the past decade, and even then it is not a permanent re-injection.

“The stresses in our system and on our teachers will only be addressed by a massive funding effort.”

Another teacher, who works at a large secondary school in an affluent area of the central belt, said: “PEF money is not equivalent to the funding that has been cut in schools and is a temporary measure.

“There may come a time when this money (which is not sufficient in the first instance to close a widening social gap) is no longer awarded.”

The guidance teacher who urged ministers to visit their school told how they had worked in the city with the “highest drug death rate in Europe” for 13 years.

“Poverty has increased and is impacting on the well-being of children on a daily basis,” the teacher said.