BREADLINE CHILDREN
PUPILS ‘COMING TO SCHOOL WITH JUST A SLICE OF BREAD AND MARGE FOR LUNCH’: TEACHERS LIFT THE LID ON TODAY’S CHILDHOOD POVERTY
CHILDREN in Cardiff are coming to school with just a slice of bread and margarine in their lunchbox, teachers have warned as they highlight the devastating problems of poverty in today’s classrooms.
Education leaders from across the UK report that malnourished, greylooking, children are turning up to school in dirty uniforms and stuffing food in their pockets because they are living in poverty.
In some cases, youngsters have failed to arrive for class because they do not have shoes, while others have been spotted in their uniforms at weekends because they have nothing else to wear, it was suggested.
Jane Jenkins, from a Cardiff primary school, said children have turned up with just a slice of bread and margarine in their lunchbox, adding that the school supplements lunches, and frequently gives out fruit from the fruit tuck box if they cannot afford the 20p to buy it.
Speaking to reporters at the National Education Union (NEU) conference, NUT section, annual conference in Brighton, she said dealing with the impact of financial hardship among pupils was increasingly taking priority over other issues.
“It is really tough,” she added. “When people are asking you about standards and ‘why is your school not higher in the league tables’ – often that is very much a secondary consideration for us these days.”
In 2015/16, there were four million children in the UK living in poverty, according to the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) – equivalent to nine in every classroom of 30 pupils.
The primary school leaders who spoke to reporters did not wish to identify their schools.
One headteacher from Cumbria, who would only give her name as “Lynn”, said she was aware of pupils putting “food in their pockets to take home because they’re not sure if they’re going to get another meal that day”.
“In some establishments I would imagine that would be called stealing, but in ours it’s called survival,” she said.
She described seeing children from a nearby affluent secondary school and comparing them to youngsters who had been to her school.
“My children who have gone from me up to the local secondary school have grey skin, poor teeth, poor hair, poor nails, they are smaller, they are thinner,” she said.
The students she had visited at the other secondary had “clear skin, good hair, good nails, strong looking children”, she said.
Louise Regan, from a Nottinghamshire primary school said she noticed a difference when taking pupils to sporting events with other schools.
“You think ‘our kids are really small,’ you don’t notice it because you’re with them all the time. When you then see them with children of the same age that are in an affluent area, they just look tiny.”
She said her school has also washed dirty uniform for pupils, and added that in some cases youngsters may have worn their uniform at the weekend, explaining: “You can go into the town where we are and the children are wearing uniform, often something that we’ve given them, and they are wearing that at weekends.”
A poll of around 900 NEU members found that 87% think that poverty is having a significant impact on the learning of their pupils.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “Giving our most vulnerable children the best start in life is key. That’s why we fund free breakfasts in our schools, making sure children receive a healthy start to the school day. Through our Pupil Deprivation Grant, we are investing unprecedented amounts to support our schools to improve outcomes for our disadvantaged learners.
“Tackling the scourge of poverty from limiting the potential of people across the country is a fundamental priority for us. However, the UK Government’s austerity policies and tax and welfare reforms are pushing more people into poverty, which is severely hampering our efforts to tackle it.”