Responding to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s annual poverty
report, which shows that there are 3.9million children living in
poverty in the UK, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders, said: “These bleak
findings demonstrate just how much more work needs to be done to
create a fairer society.
“As the report states, there is a clear link between poverty and
educational attainment that is evident at a young age and
continues throughout a child’s education, impacting their future
employment and indeed their entire life. The pandemic and
cost-of-living crisis have widened the attainment gap between
disadvantaged children and their peers, but the inequalities that
underpin our society have been around far longer and run much
deeper. If children lack basic amenities, if they are cold and
hungry, then they are not in a fit state to learn. Significant
and sustained government investment is required to tackle child
poverty and ensure the conditions are right for all young people
to be able to learn and thrive.
“Immediate and urgent action is also necessary over the growing
number of pupils attending school hungry. The government must
extend the free school meals scheme to all children whose
families are in receipt of Universal Credit to ensure that young
people are guaranteed a decent meal. This is so obvious that it
should not need saying, and yet the calls for this simple step,
made by many organisations and individuals, have so far been
ignored.”
