Teachers warn over pupil poverty

[super jumbe]

Children are turning up for school cold, hungry and wearing unwashed or unsuitable clothes because their families are facing money problems, teachers are warning.

In some cases, youngsters are arriving for lessons unable to concentrate and without the right equipment for class, according to a poll.

The findings, published by the NASUWT teaching union, reveal the impact of financial hardship on the nation's children, with some teachers telling stories of pupils "hugging radiators" to keep warm, bringing in mouldy food in their lunch boxes and getting upset when they lose basic items such as pencils and rubbers.

It comes as a separate study found that some children are missing out on school trips because they are too expensive, while others are unable to study music or arts-based subjects due to the cost.

The NASUWT's findings show that almost three-quarters (74%) of teachers have seen pupils coming to school hungry, with 80% saying that youngsters had been lacking in energy and concentration because they were eating poorly.

More than four-fifths (82%) said they had seen pupils turning up for school in inappropriate clothing, with similar proportions (88%) saying children had clothes that were unwashed, or damaged and frayed.

Around 77% said there had been pupils at their school who did not have the right equipment for lessons.

One teacher said they had seen "a child being possessive and anxious about their personal possessions and becoming very upset when they lost a pencil and rubber because 'they were really expensive'".

Another claimed: "One child told a teacher they weren't always able to feed their dog, so sometimes he will give his food to the dog."

The poll reveals that nearly a third (32%) of teachers had seen pupils arrive or leave school mid-year because they had been forced to leave their homes, while 27% said they had experience of students losing their homes due to financial problems.

One NASUWT member said: "I have never known such abject poverty as my pupils are suffering at the moment."

Another said they had seen "children practically hugging radiators, children eating at friends' houses because they don't have food at home, mouldy food in packed lunch boxes".

More than a fifth (22%) of those surveyed had lent or given pupils money, while 27% had provided food, 63% had given or lent equipment and 15% had offered clothing to youngsters, the poll found.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said: "Teachers and other public service workers are struggling to pick up the pieces caused by this Coalition's economic and social policies.

"Poverty and homelessness take a physical and emotional toll on children.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/teachers-warn-over-pupil-poverty-045854221.html#QdbIB6o

[Meat-Head]

Yeah just HAVE to quote liliane (iShit)

if you can't feed en, dont breed em (tm)

[rds60h]

Some of these problems are being exacerbated by the Schools themselves, where they change uniforms, or have different parts of the uniform for different years or by having school badges embroided onto actual items such as shirts, jumpers and blazers meaning that a cheap blazer or jumper cannot be bought and a school bage stitch on, and in some cases the schools insist that uniform is only bought from specific sources.
And just to rub salt into the wounds the schools who burden parents with such extra costs, have no dress code for teachers and so have members of staff turning up in an amazing array of clothing ranging from looking like a tramp to looking like a tart and everything inbetween.

[Canker_Canison]

I love it when stats are used. This is so funny.

More than four-fifths (82%) said they had seen pupils turning up for school in inappropriate clothing, with similar proportions (88%) saying children had clothes that were unwashed, or damaged and frayed.

Taking a single school.
What are the chances that the 82% & 88% of the teachers are seeing members of the same family?
Maybe 3 kids spread over the 5 years of secondary education....
That would mean each pupil would need to be noticed by 30% of the teaching staff... but they don't say over what period... so lets say one week.. So each child would need to be seen by only 6% of the teachers per day. My school had about 40 teachers (over est, based on 6 groups per year with 5 years..30 total needed for coverage). So each kid would need to be seen by 3 teaches per day.

So it's possible that one family per school is responsible for the unions worry over child poverty.

I know the situation is worse than that. But they left so much information out of their stats, it's all next to useless.