‘Desperate neglect’: teachers washing clothes and

finding beds as poverty grips England’s schools

Schools risk being overwhelmed by hungry, exhausted children from
freezing homes, headteachers and campaigners warn
‘If a child is hungry, it doesn’t matter if you’re a bloody good teacher’

Anna Fazackerley
Sat 16 Mar 2024 13.20 CET
Last modified on Sat 16 Mar 2024 23.05 CET

Schools are finding beds, providing showers for pupils and washing uniforms as child
poverty spirals out of control, headteachers from across England have told the Observer.

School leaders said that as well as hunger they were now trying to mitigate exhaustion,
with increasing numbers of children living in homes without enough beds or unable to
sleep because they were cold. They warned that “desperate” poverty was driving problems
with behaviour, persistent absence and mental health.

The head of a primary school in a deprived area in north-west England, speaking

anonymously to avoid identifying vulnerable children, said: “We have a child who we put in
the shower a couple of times a week.” He described the family’s bathroom as “disgusting”
and said they couldn’t afford to buy cleaning products.

His school routinely washed uniforms for children whose families didn’t have a washing
machine.

The school recently stepped in to help after discovering a pupil begging outside a
supermarket and its free breakfast club was “really needed”. But lack of sleep had become
another big symptom of poverty – and a barrier to learning.

Kids are sleeping on sofas, in homes with smashed windows

Headteacher in north-west England
“We’ve got a lot of kids in homes with not enough beds or a mum sleeping with two or
three children,” the head said. Support staff would often take children out of class who
weren’t coping because of exhaustion to let them sleep for an hour or two. “Some children
are falling asleep in lessons, and not just the little ones,” he said.

The school had many children living in “desperate neglect”. “Kids are sleeping on sofas, in
homes with smashed windows, no curtains, or mice,” he said. “I come out of some of these
properties and get really upset.”

A report published on Friday by the Child of the North campaign, led by eight leading
northern universities, and the Centre for Young Lives thinktank, warned that after decades
of cuts to public services, schools were now the “frontline of the battle against child
poverty”, and at risk of being “overwhelmed”. It called on the government to increase
funding to help schools support the more than 4 million children now living in poverty in the
UK.
Anne Longfield, founder of the Centre for Young Lives and the government’s former
children’s commissioner, said: “The government has dismantled public services over the
past decade and schools are the last people standing. They need proper support to tackle
child poverty.”

Katrina Morley, chief executive of Tees Valley Education trust, which runs four primary
academies and one special school, all with exceptionally high numbers of children on free
school meals, described sleep as “a real issue”. “We have children without beds or they
might have to share with siblings,” she said. “Some don’t have enough bedding and no
heating so they can’t sleep because they are cold.”

The trust works with local charities to provide families with support on issues like finding
beds, and has also discreetly donated blankets over the winter.

A teacher at a primary school in the south-east who works with children at risk of
exclusion, 90% of whom are from working families relying on food banks, said children
were vaping and buying cheap energy drinks “to suppress their hunger”. Their behaviour
was “erratic” as a result. “Every child I deal with is fighting issues that would keep us off
work,” he added. “We can’t just teach in a bubble and ignore that."

Jonny Uttley, chief executive of the the Education Alliance, which runs 11 schools in Hull
and East Yorkshire, said hunger or an inability to replace or wash uniforms were the most
overt signs of poverty they saw. Some of their schools now provided some children with
PE kits and washed them between lessons.

“We’ve got families who can’t afford the electricity to run a washing machine, or it’s broken
and they can’t replace it,” he said. “Or parents are simply struggling to cope.”

But in secondary school, where teachers didn’t see parents at the school gate and many
young people felt ashamed to admit their family was suddenly on the edge, working out
how to step in could be harder, he said. His trust relied on pastoral staff who keep in touch
with families, but Uttley warned that although “poverty is in every school in the country
now” many cash-strapped schools were being forced to cut pastoral staff just when they
were needed most.

Ben Davis, head of St Ambrose Barlow RC high in Salford, said: “There is this simplistic,
romantic idea that education lifts people out of poverty, but you have to do something to
mitigate the impacts of poverty or children can’t learn.”

His school employs a full-time therapist, and she encounters many young people who feel
ashamed of growing up in poverty. Davis said this made them vulnerable to criminal
exploitation. “We feel if we don’t try to help, who else will?” he added.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We understand the pressures many
households are under, which is why we have extended eligibility for free school meals
more than any government in the past half a century – doubling the number of children
receiving them since 2010.”
Ex 1: understanding the text. Match 1-12 highlighted in yellow in the article to their
meaning A-L
1. poverty grips England’s schools
2. poverty spirals out of control
3. they were now trying to mitigate exhaustion
4. The school recently stepped in to help
5. thinktank
6. The government has dismantled public services over the past decade 7. said children
were vaping and buying cheap energy drinks “to suppress their hunger” 8. erratic
9. Or parents are simply struggling to cope.
10. many young people felt ashamed to admit their family was suddenly on the edge 11.
many cash-strapped schools were being forced to cut pastoral staff 12. we have extended
eligibility for free school meals more than any government in the past half a century

A. they were trying to provide children with better sleep to avoid their lack of attention at
school
B. parents are making big effort to get by
C. State services have collapsed in the past 10 years
D. youngsters found it difficult to own up to being in financial troubles
E. the school has become involved in order to help
F. poverty keeps in check the English schools
G. expert groups
H. unreliable / inconstant
I. the last government established more than any other government in the past 50 years
that more students are entitled to free school meals
J. poverty noses up unbridledly
K. children recur to e-cigarettes and drink energy drinks to avoid feeling hungry L. many
indigent school had to reduce the number of lay workers who care for the children's
poverty troubles at home

Ex 2: Can you think of any part of the historical background or author which we
studied this year that can be connected with the article? What can your comment be
on the interrelation you have spotted?