Memories of youth fade over time, but one feeling most of us can probably still remember clearly is how much we looked forward to school holidays.
They were precious, fun, exciting – full of possibility, empty of maths. This week is half-term, and just like when we were small, that will be cause for celebration in many households.
But in others, it will be the complete opposite – a horrendous seven days when children will go hungry without their free school meals... and that’s those who are lucky enough to get them in the first place.
If the Mirror’s Free School Meals For All campaign is successful, this will at least be a thing of the past – all primary kids will be guaranteed food during term time. Somehow we’re in a situation where this is something we have to fight for.
Until we achieve this aim, the 800,000 children living in poverty who don’t qualify for free school meals are at risk of going hungry all year round.
Former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield says current poverty levels are the worst she’s seen in her 40-year career. She wants the government to treat this like the national emergency it clearly is by holding regular COBRA meetings.
Instead, they’ve been busy fighting among themselves, focusing their attention on picking a new leader. They decided on a man filmed making a speech to Tory party members where he boasted: “We inherited a bunch of formulas from the Labour Party which shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas. That needed to be… undone.”
The unpalatable reality is that disadvantaged children – those most in need of help – are being failed. At the barest of minimums, they should be fed and kept warm while they’re at school – but even this shamefully low bar is in real danger of not being met.
Early data from a survey of the National Association of Head Teachers shows that 90% of schools in England will have run out of money by next September, thanks to the need for salary increases hopefully in line with 10% inflation and rocketing energy bills.
Best-case scenario, schools will face impossible choices. Most likely outcome is that they will genuinely be unable to afford to heat their buildings OR pay their staff.
Jeremy Hunt – if he is still Chancellor at the end of the month, which suddenly seems a very long time away in politics – is set to announce the government’s debt-reduction plan on October 31. He spoiler-alerted himself by suggesting all departments, including Education, will be expected to make more cuts. But that was the old plan, under a different PM, and cannot be allowed to go ahead. It’s barbaric and cruel. It’s child abuse.
The Chancellor has to prioritise our schools, accept the fact that even a budget freeze will mean that kids do too, and instead increase budgets in line with the rising cost of living, at the very least.
In his first speech, our new PM talked of balancing the budget and said: “The government I lead will not leave the next generation with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves.”
If he doesn’t put his money where his mouth is and allow them basic human needs – food and warmth, as they learn – it will be the next generation who are too weak... to do anything.
