Hungry children miss out on free school meals

As reported by the BBC, families from ‘working poor’ omitted from scheme, and costs crisis leaves schools powerless to subsidise them

Headteachers say they have never seen anything like it: a ‘perfect storm’ of rising poverty, higher prices and shrinking school budgets resulting in more hungry children in classrooms but fewer resources to help them.

While the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) in England has jumped from 15% in 2019 to more than 22% this year, headteachers say the numbers of ‘invisible hungry’ – from families in poverty but not poor enough to qualify – has also increased.

On top of the 1.9m children eligible for FSM, mainly because they live in households receiving benefits and with an annual income below £7,400, the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that there are 800,000 children in families below the poverty line, on universal credit or other benefits but missing out on FSM.

Headteachers say the effects of hunger on their students is stark. ‘Children who come to school hungry are going to struggle to concentrate, struggle to learn and struggle to behave, and that makes our job harder,’ said the head of a state secondary school in the West Midlands.

‘I’ve got growing 14- and 15-year-old boys who cannot get enough to eat, their parents can’t afford the £2.60 we charge for lunches each day, and that causes all sorts of problems – stealing food, stealing money, all because they don’t have enough to eat.’

Even those receiving free lunches are often from what are defined as ‘very low food security’ households, where family members have to skip meals or eat less because of no money or other sources of food.

The problem extends to the wealthiest parts of England, such as Wokingham or Windsor, where about one in 10 pupils are eligible for FSM. But the numbers soar in more deprived parts of the country: Islington, Blackpool and Manchester have more than 40% of all children eligible. In the north-east of England, nearly one in three pupils are eligible, compared with about one in six in the south-east.

But schools’ ability to help is hamstrung by the costs crisis that is affecting them as much as the families of the children they teach. Some secondary schools have seen their energy bills triple this year despite government assistance, while an unexpected increase in teachers’ pay has added hundreds of thousands of pounds to wage bills.

Councils, another source of funding for families and schools in difficulty, are themselves facing budget pressures, having already experienced more than a decade of retrenchment and cuts since the start of austerity policies in 2010. The Local Government Association estimates that rising prices and wages have added £2.4bn in costs to local authority budgets this year.