Free school meals/uniform grant in the 1980s

[ThisCoolBean]

Just had a conversation with someone and it’s made me wonder. If I’d received free school meals and a uniform grant at school in the 1980s, would this be the equivalent today to children in receipt of a pupil premium? Or are the conditions for receiving them different now?
I guess I’m just wondering if I would have been considered disadvantaged, whereas I always thought I was just ‘poor’ due to my DM’s income. She was a single parent and we were on benefits, as she worked but in a very low paying job. My father wriggled out of paying any maintenance (pre-CSA) and i never saw him.
This is in no way meant to open up a discussion leading to benefits bashing, I just never felt disadvantaged. Bottom of the scale money wise definitely, but it never entered my head it would hold me back. But maybe looking back it did and I didn’t realise?

But I think it’s brilliant if the pupil premium is used to bolster pupils who receive it, it’s definitely progress.

Pupil premium isn’t used per child, it goes into a pot in school and is used to fund stuff to help those from lower income families make progress. Quite often the stuff has the side effect of being beneficial for everyone.

Schools have to provide a lot of data on what they spend their PP money on. If your local primary school has a website it should be on there somewhere.

You would have just been thought of as poor. Si gle Motherhood was another stick to beat Women with, though.

The Torys didn't care about classing anyone as disadvantaged. Or rather they wouldn't admit to it and liked to blame individuals for their circumstances.

Labour talked about breaking down the structures that kept people poor and linking life chances with outcomes. That didn't happen until Tony Blair.

Were you of the age were it wasn't given in money and you would be taken to a pick up place to collect your uniform?

That was humiliating for many.

@IncyWincyGrownUp - at my school PP certainly is used for individual pupils. Yes, some of it goes into a pot, e.g for paying for additional support staff, but lots is spent on individual children, such as covering their school trips / music lessons ... even breakfast club costs, to help their parents gain employment etc.

We had to go to the place to pick up uniform. For some reason my mother wouldn’t allow us to have free school meals though, she thought it was too humiliating. We needed it though, it was jam sandwiches every day and the same cheap basic meal in the evening

I remember my mum being involved in a campaign to get free dinners and clothing allowance for widowed mothers' children. Apparently other single mums on low income or benefits got them and she considered it unfair that she didn't because my dad was dead. I was very small so can't comment on the accuracy of any of it. I'm guessing the extra benefits widows got put them above the threshold for free dinners. But it was kind of to replace maintenance which wouldn't have been counted or something like that.

this thread has reminded me of a practice at the school I attended in the 70s - we were given 'dinner tickets' (which were given out when we paid in our weekly lunch money) which we had to hand in when we collected our lunch - it was the rule that the kids who had free school meals were first in line to go get their lunch, I always thought it was a terribly humiliating thing to do to them, talk about marking out the poor kids.

oh! and the free school meals were also a different colour ticket than the paid ones

@IncyWincyGrownUp schools have to be able to show how "pupil x"s money was used to support "pupil x"

The tickets are ringing a bell! And I do remember going to a place to get school uniform but I don’t remember much about it really.
I had a chat with DM earlier about it and she said that my best friend’s mum was furious that DM got school meals benefit (I think because she was on supplementary benefit) but had only one child, whereas my best friend’s mum had 6 children but didn’t receive it as her husband had a good senior management job so a higher household income but more mouths to feed.
Looking back at it all I actually think I was the opposite of disadvantaged. I passed the 11+, went to a grammar school, got a full grant to a Russell Group uni, then a career in the City. I think I was very lucky to have benefitted from 80s/90s social mobility which seems to be disappearing.

Divorced parents and father never gave us money.
We were given money for school uniforms. If I remember correctly about 30quid twice a year-it helped but did not cover uniform and shoes by a long shot.

But dinner money- we had to collect tokens from the staff room every morning. Friends always asked what I was doing- never told them I was lining up for charity (as it felt) and handed over my token by keeping it closed in my hand til the last possible moment. It was humiliating to feel we were poor.
I am so glad I then got a full grant to go to uni and forge a great career- definitely rose out of being poor.

You wouldn't have received free school meals or a grant because your mum worked.

Kids like me were the lowest of the low. No extra support, lots of derision from staff and other pupils, probably a lot of 'you're a BASTARD'. No extra provision, no free trips or extra books, if you didn't pay, you went without.

I have no affection for 80s music as it was the soundtrack to jokes about living in a bin, being a tramp and not knowing who my father was. And no staff stopping it.

It’s strange, and perhaps wasn’t so everywhre, but I don’t ever recall there being a stigma attached to free school meals when I was at primary school. Every Monday morning our teacher would take the lunches register for the week and you had to say either “Sandwiches, please” or “Dinners, please” or “Free dinners, please.” Would never happen nowadays. But I definitely don’t recall anyone batting an eyelid at let alone teasing the “free dinners” kids.

Statistically and as a group of the population, children receiving free school meals are most likely to be disadvantaged in other ways, regardless of whether individuals felt they were or were disadvantaged - it was recognition of this that led to Pupil Premium being introduced in the first place.

I remember moving schools at 7 and being stunned that there was no stick for getting free dinners. In fact every pupil went to the school office to get their dinner ticket if you were going school dinners (most kids went home for lunch) and you went into the actual office one at a time so no-one in my new school knew if I paid for my dinner or if it was free as the tickets were all the same.

The cafeteria set up brought in when I was in P7, and through high school, meant you were marked out though as dinner was no longer a set meal with a set price.

More like 90’s but my friend was entitled to free school lunch because she had a single mum. Her single mum would of been on something like 80-100k and the dad was involved who also had a lot of money. I only know as my friend was saying how silly it seemed that she could get it based on her parents not being together rather than on income or if needed

@MitziK of course working people could get free school meals for their kids! If they were low paid, you got it

Family income supplement iirc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilyIncomee_Supplement