‘I’m a primary school teacher – I’ve had to buy food and clothes for pupils’ ...Middle East

A primary school headteacher has said she regularly provides food, clothes and transport for children facing poverty at home.

Angi Gibson, head of Hadrian Park Primary School in Tyne and Wear, told The i Paper schools have become the “fifth emergency service” by being forced to address child poverty in the absence of government support.

Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) of teachers go beyond their educating role to help pupils in poverty at least once a month, according to polling by the National Education Union (NEU) while three in seven (43 per cent) intervene on a weekly basis.

Teachers are regularly having to provide food, clothes, and housing support to students while tackling the stigma that comes with child poverty, the union has said.

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has warned 31 per cent of the UK’s children are living in poverty, with numbers expected to keep rising.

Ms Gibson said she places teachers on watch for pupils in need of urgent support when they arrive at school in the morning, due to the rising levels of child poverty she is witnessing.

She said: “Children come to school hungry more frequently, we actually keep a stash of breakfast items in our cupboards so that we can discreetly provide this food to our children as and when they come in.”

Though her school provides a breakfast club some families cannot afford the fee, she said.

Hadrian Park school provides support for parents’ petrol costs, spare uniform and washing and drying services, Ms Gibson said.

But she said her school sometimes buys new uniforms for students out of its own pocket, because the poor diet of pupils living in poverty means their clothes no longer fit.

She said: “Because of the bad diet at home, they’ve put on quite a bit of weight, so they are clinically obese. All of the spare uniform that we’ve got wouldn’t fit them, so we will physically go out and buy clothes.”

Ms Gibson said she and her staff try to offer free clothes and food to pupils discreetly, because children can be ashamed of their circumstances.

“We have formed such good relationships with our children that they’re very open and honest with us,” she said.

Poverty poses ‘barriers’ to learning

Rising levels of child poverty mean schools must often address the basic needs of pupils before they can provide teaching, Ms Gibson said.

She told The i Paper: “It’s extremely hard for our children to focus on learning when they’re coming in hungry, tired and worried. So that’s three barriers of learning before they’ve even walked through the door.”

Almost nine in ten teachers (86 per cent) believe poverty is a limiting opportunity for pupils to some extent, according to the NEU’s survey.

In the most deprived areas of the country most teachers (57%) step in to support pupils in poverty at least weekly, including a quarter who do so every day.

Ms Gibson said: “We are not the fifth emergency service, although we feel like it at times. Our sole provision is education, but it just isn’t like that anymore.

“We have to fill the gaps of social work, support, nurture, mental health and everything. And it is so, so frustrating.”

The government delayed its child poverty strategy – initially due to be published in the spring – which is expected to be announced this month.

Labour is being urged by campaigners to address child poverty, and is expected to scrap the two-child benefit cap at the Budget.

Rachel Reeves is expected to cut the two-child benefit cap at the Budget at a cost of £3bn, it has been reported.

Reeves is expected to argue that ending the cap, rather than tapering payments, will save poor children from a “lifelong cost of living crisis” and reduce state expenditure in the long term.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated abolishing the cap could lift 630,000 children out of absolute poverty – defined as households with an income 60 per cent below the median average.

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Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary, said: “Teachers up and down the country are plugging the gaps left by the state.

“Nearly all teachers are now seeing their pupils held back by poverty and a majority are going above and beyond their day jobs to support their communities where government support has failed.”

Kate Anstey, head of education policy at CPAG, said: “The government’s child poverty strategy can’t come soon enough for millions of children who cannot learn or thrive because of poverty.”

The Government has been approached for comment.

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