Teachers feeding hungry children

There are people on here who had horrible, abusive upbringings, and were not fed.

No, it hasn’t, but some of the blame lays with the parents,

I started teaching in the 70s. We often fed hungry children then, and , which wouldn’t be allowed now, bathed those that were dirty or smelled of urine. Sadly things have not improved

It was in todays news. So things haven't improved much.

This was a fairly affluent area no council estates etc

Sometimes families on council estates treat their children better than those who live in mansions.

Phantom thread.🙄

This thread is 12 years old !!!!

Mamie

This is a shocking story in the Guardian today:
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/19/breadline-britain-hungry-schoolchildren-breakfast
It feels as if the gap between rich and poor is widening all the time at the moment.

2012 folks….

Not to say that things are better 12 years later but this was happening in the early 70s when a friend started teaching in a Manchester primary school.

My daughter left teaching several years ago ( class sizes, lack of funding etc) but prior to that she used to take food in for some children. And I’m sure things have got worse since then.

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When DH and I were in London recently, sitting in a cafe in Oxford Street looking out of the window, we observed an obviously foreign little old lady who was begging away for all she was worth, approaching anybody who came within her radius, hand outstretched, eye contact etc. Later on, further down Oxford Street, we came across another similar little old lady doing the same.

Fairly obvious they were part of a begging business which used sympathetic figures like old women (and probably children).

But they are not the kind of beggars I was referring to. It's easy to spot a real desperate down and out.

Petallus - I never read about the chips, crisps and sugary cakes + fluo drink in any newspaper - I witnessed it, day in, day out, for nearly 20 years of teaching in local schools.

There was an excellent documetary about Romanian beggars on TV a few months ago. The children themselves are poor, but they are 'managed' by adults who have large homes in Romania - it is another version of women being trafficked for prostitution.

By and large posters on Mumsnet are a kind, non-judgemental lot.

This image of the poor as really just being feckless, with flat screen tvs, gadgets and for some reason eating crisps is often mentioned, must be true in some cases but I do think it's largely a fabrication of the right wing tabloid press (mentioning no names).

I usually give to beggars but my DD never does as he's sure they have a limo parked around the corner!

And I am talking about the secondary school sector, not primary. Canteens DO provide 'healthy' choices, but the kids happen to choose the *p - despite knowing full well that is is such. And from my observations over many many years, the kids who choose the chips, cakes, fluo drink - are most of the time the ones that didn't have a good breakfast, and won't go home to a good balanced dinner (I use that term loosely, not talking about organic doodahs and low-fat/sugar yogurts!, etc).

Some schools have banned these drinks from their tuck shops and vending machines. In fact, many primary schools take pride in achieving healthy eating awards and if some can, surely all can. Certainly my GC learned about healthy eating and healthy living in Y2. Children are also encouraged to bring their own water bottles to school.

And us! Never allowed anything else at the boarding bit either. The only time I had juice,tea,coffee etc: was on holiday at home.
Oh we're allowed a horlicks before O level exams so that we had agoodnights sleep.

I was going to ask what on earth school meals services were doing providing fluorescent drinks until jura pointed out the profit motive. If school meals are driven by profit motives, improving them (so that fluorescent drinks are never an option, for instance) is impossible. Makes you want to give up in despair

We only ever got water to drink with school dinners.

There have been threads on Mumsnet where parents have run out of money and can't feed the kids. Other mums have rallied round.

I'm not sure parenting classes would help those parents tbh. I'm not at all sure many of them actually exist. Apart from in the pages of the Daily Mail.

I agree that in many cases it is lack of money that is the problem. I personally know a couple of families where money for food runs out at the end of the month.

As for poor nutrition, if you are going to penalise parents for having obese children, to be fair you would have to do something similar with obese adults who are often costing the nhs plenty for fat related illnesses.

Maybe we should run courses to advise people on how to manage alcohol and cigarette over-use.

Not to mention chocolate

Lack of money is one factor; inability to budget is another.

j04 I don't think that is the case for all of them. As someone else said, they often have the latest gadgets, smoke etc.

How would parenting classes help with lack of money? I am NOT criticising the parents' ability to know what to feed the children. The problem is they do not have enough money!

Engaging the interest of people who may not want to learn, such as prisoners and the bottom streams of inner-city secondary schools requires a lot of experience. I suspect that many women who have not had the advantage of a good education could easily feel patronised by someone they perceived as privileged and middle-class teaching them to feed their children according to the teacher's own ideas.
I love the idea of a mums' (and dads!) club based in a local venue where everyone feels equal and they swap ideas