One in five teachers (20%) said the number of children who are too hungry to learn has increased since the beginning of the academic year. A quarter of teachers (25%) reported using their own money to feed children.
Terri Cheung, headteacher at Phoenix Primary School in Liverpool, said: “You can tell when children haven’t had enough good nutrition by how lethargic they become in the classroom. Hunger makes it harder to concentrate, no matter how exciting the topic. If a child’s mind wanders during a key part of the lesson, it can affect their learning the next day, which can quickly snowball.
“Many of our families can’t afford school meals, so they provide packed lunches, which are often low in nutritional value. Meanwhile, our school cook prepares delicious, nutritious hot meals every day. Our children feel it’s unfair that children in other parts of England and across the UK can access universal free school meals while they can’t.”
The School Food Review, which includes Barnardo’s, the Food Foundation, School Food Matters, Chefs in Schools and other organisations, urges the government to expand the free school meals to all primary school children.
In England, families currently need to earn less than £7,400 a year (after tax and excluding benefits) to qualify for free school meals. By comparison, in London and Wales, all children in primary school are entitled to free school meals, as are some age groups in Scotland. In Northern Ireland, the eligibility threshold is more than double England’s at £15,000.
Barnardo’s also recommends governments across nations increase the value of healthy shopping vouchers given to low-income families with young children, for all families on universal credit to get free school meals, and for the quality of school meals to be improved.
The campaign is backed by celebrities including chefs Jamie Oliver and Tom Kerridge, and EastEnders star Michelle Collins.
Oliver said: “When we feed kids well, when we act with kindness and integrity in our politics, the benefits are profound. It truly is a superpower – setting them up to get better grades, better jobs, and so putting £8.9bn back into the economy over 20 years. Let’s hope our politicians can step up to the plate.”
Kerridge added: “Clearly something is broken within that free school meal system. Trying to get something more robust and solid in place is desperately needed. For many of these kids, a free school meal is the only meal they get that’s warm.”
Collins and her sister were eligible for free school meals as children, and they felt the “stigma” of and “humiliation” of having to stand in the queue to collect their lunch.
“My mum worked three jobs to get the money together for us to not have to join that queue. Sadly, I think some of that stigma still exists today,” she says. “I’m supporting this campaign for universal free school meals to ensure everyone is treated the same and that children are getting the healthy food they need with no questions asked.”
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