One in three teachers are providing pupils with basic hygiene products such as toothpaste and soap amid soaring child poverty rates, a new study shows.
Eight in ten primary school teachers have said they had seen a rise in the numbers of children coming to school unwashed or not looking presentable in the last five years and have found themselves intervening at an increasing rate.
Nicola Finney, head teacher at St Paul’s Primary School in Stoke on Trent, told The Independent around 18 per cent – or nearly one in five – of her pupils’ families were receiving products from the school, as growing numbers of households are “falling on hard times”.
“I’ve worked in primary schools for 12 years and I’ve definitely seen an increase over the last five years. It can range from seeing a child wearing the same shirt for a few days, or noticing that they haven’t washed when they get changed for PE. We won’t stand by if we know people are in need,” she said.
“It’s not always an impact on families that are on benefits – it can be self-employed families or those made redundant. More and more households are falling on hard times.
“It’s becoming part of my year on year budgets. We try to look at the budget very carefully to put that money aside to allocate towards these products.
Staff are even buying extra bits to distribute it to families when they go shopping.
A nice Tory achievement there. Government figures published earlier this year showed the number of children in poverty across the UK had surged by 100,000 in 12 months.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 05026.html