I’m a teacher – I know how important free school meals are

It’s very simple: if you’re hungry, running on empty, with no fuel in the tank – you’re not ready to learn

The current government already has a reputation of disregarding the importance of free school meals (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Every teacher has seen it countless times. It’s 2pm and a student in your class is visibly dropping off. Maybe they’ve forgotten their lunch, or decided to blow their money on sweets before school (unbeknownst to Mum). But maybe the problem is this child’s family are simply unable to put enough money towards school lunches today.

This means that the student is showing up to school with a serious disadvantage – something that’s a reality for too many kids in Britain.

The free school meals system is an absolute necessity, and a lifeline for many children. There are lots of factors that can affect the learning taking place in a classroom, and research has shown that diet has a direct and immediate link to behaviour, concentration and cognitive ability. It’s very simple: if you’re hungry, running on empty, with no fuel in the tank – you’re not ready to learn.

Despite this, free school meals are currently not made available to all families in need, and they do not extend over the school breaks.

I teach in a school in west London where, thankfully, the borough council have pledged to provide food vouchers to all children entitled to benefit-related free school meals during the May half-term and summer break, as they have undertaken in previous holiday periods.

Many families across the country will not receive this care, and no doubt are already worrying about how they will feed their children during the holidays.

Despite what you may remember from your own school days, teachers genuinely care about the wellbeing of their students and the thought of them going home for summer holidays to a less than satisfactory diet is heart-breaking.

With the cost of living crisis biting hard, more and more families will be struggling to afford daily necessities. Energy and food prices are soaring and inflation stands at a 40-year high, meaning that impossible decisions are being made for households with no financial safety net. Free school meals are perhaps more vital than ever, and the government is failing children and harming their life chances by not extending them.

The current government already has a reputation of disregarding the importance of free school meals. It took pressure from England footballer Marcus Rashford to make the government rethink their approach during the pandemic. In Rashford’s words, he was "disappointed by the lack of empathy" in the Conservative government.

In October 2020, only a few months after Rashford had forced a U-turn on school meals provision that summer, 320 Tory MPs voted against the very same initiative to be extended over the October half-term, as well as the Christmas break. Among those who voted the motion down were the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

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Feeding those in need shouldn’t be something the government opt in and out of at different times of the year. The health and wellbeing of children in Britain should always be a priority, during term time and holidays. The safeguarding of children and their ability to learn is where public money is undeniably well-spent.

As teachers, we dedicate our careers to our students’ academic, social and emotional development. We know that the future lies in the hands of children. We already face challenges in giving students the best chance possible, partly due to national school budget cuts. How can we ever hope to ensure our students can fulfil their potential when they are too hungry to learn?

Plato said that knowledge is the food of the soul. But if a student hasn’t had actual food to begin with, it’s not much good, is it?

Matt Adams is head of performing arts at a west London school