Families in need are turning to schools for the support the welfare system is failing to provide.
Schools across England have been “propping up a failing welfare state” by providing essential items to struggling families during the health crisis.
Research by University College London (UCL) shows that schools in areas of high levels of poverty have been more greatly burdened with the task of delivering support to families facing difficulties, namely providing goods like food and clothes.
As well as providing basic living essentials, schools have reported supporting families in housing with insufficient resources and space for adequate home learning. The report highlighted how the current funding model on offer to schools was not enough to manage the system’s many issues, which have risen sharply in the wake of the pandemic.
“Schools recognise levels of poverty that the current welfare system ignores, precisely because they are so closely connected to their communities,” said the report.
‘Urgent action’ is needed
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) is pushing for “urgent action” from the government to tackle the “scourge of child poverty.”
“Covid-19 has exposed the endemic levels of poverty and inequality in the UK,” said Courtney.
‘Through the NEU’s own research, we know the shocking levels of poverty that education staff are witnessing daily. Members spoke of families turning to schools or colleges for extra support during lockdown for the provision of basic learning resources such as pens, paper and books.
“Schools having to set up food banks and teachers reporting they personally provide food and snacks to their pupils to ensure they have eaten during the school day have become part of everyday life in many schools. It is completely unacceptable that children are going hungry or don’t have basic supplies to access education,” he continued.
These views are reiterated by Paul Whiteman of the National Association of Head Teachers, who warns: “Poverty and inequality will remain entrenched in the UK unless the government takes urgent action.”
End to UC uplift will exacerbate child poverty
UCL’s damming report comes just over a week after the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit (UC) to help families during the pandemic was ended on October 6.
A study predicts that the removal of the uplift will result in an explosion of child poverty that will see around 1,500 additional children a year in the UK removed from their families and taken into care.
Action for Children warns that the cut will push half a million more people into poverty, including 200,000 children. The charity notes how for years the UK has witnessed its social security system fail to pull families safely through hard times and keep them afloat.
“Cuts and freezes have left many families, both in and out of work, unable to provide basic essentials, like food, clothing and heating, for their children,” says Action for Children.
Teachers are left to pick up the pieces
As the government continues to cut and freeze welfare benefits, teachers are left to pick up the pieces.
Celia Birchby, the former headteacher of a primary school on a council estate in Macclesfield, where poverty levels are above the national average, told LFF how, for years, well before the pandemic struck, her school would provide essentials to children, such as breakfast to those who had obviously not eaten before coming to school, and shoes to replace ones that were visibly falling apart.
“Why is it for so long teachers have had to be more than teachers. Instead of being able to just get on with the job of teaching, we’ve had to be social workers, councillors and now, doctors,” the former headteacher told Left Foot Forward.
“If the government is to drive up the standards of education it promises, it needs to provide adequate funding, and put more money into social work to shed teachers of other responsibilities.
“As Johnson swans off to the Costa del Sol, teachers are left to grappling to deliver the high education standards he demands, while clothing, feeding and trying to manage the mental health of impoverished children.
“Things urgently need to change.”
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a freelance journalist and contributing editor to Left Foot Forward.
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