Family credit & free school meals in the 1980s

[Clarissatheclown]

NC as I’m trying to work out things from my childhood, so may be outing later.

If your family (single parent) received family credit and you received free school meals at primary school in the early-mid 1980s, would you have been considered ‘poor’ as viewed from the standards at the time?

Yes you were considered 'poor'.
If it helps, you weren't the poorest. Some 2 parent families on family credit were told their family weren't entitled to free school meals.
Yup, we were one such family.

As a kid I had no idea who had free meals

Yes, but lots of people were, so there were quite hihg numbers on FSM.

It was a different sort of poor too.

There were more counil houses then, so fewer people were having to work AND claim benefits just to pay the rent.

FSM back then meant you were pretty much on the bones of your arse.

Everyone knew who claimed FSM, because in primary you answered the register with 'free dinners Miss' and at secondary there was a separate queue for kids to collect a token before joining the main queue. Also .

Anyone who got free school meals was considered poor at my school. Some kids slagged those kids off.

Yes. As a child at primary in the early 80's there were 2 or 3 kids in my class who got free school meals. We lived on a council estate so nobody was that well off but it was obvious that they were the poorer kids. They were given a special token or something that made it clear. Hope it isn't like that now.

There were fewer single parents then and they were demonised in the media. Glad that has moved on at least a little now although I know there are still some old fashioned attitudes out there.

When I was at school on the 90's everyone knew the kids getting a free meal. The teacher used to ask who needs a free meal ticket.

Well yes I did think they were poor, more likely I just thought the parents were lazy and didn't want to work. It wasn't just single parents but households where no one worked that were entitled.

Yeah I remember ugh. The worst was at high school having to pay with tokens instead of money and other kids would know you were.poor. or on a school trip been given a school packed lunch. While I am greatful of course it should have been done in a non stigmatising way.

I have found success in my career and earn well above average now so I know my taxes go to help out those kids who were born into less well of families I just hope they don't face the same stigma I did. But on the flip side that did help feed my determination to financially independent and ambitious to do well.

It's always been the families on the very lowest incomes that got FSM as far as I understand it - same now as then, you have to be a household with either no earned income or only a few hours' earned income. Then as now those working a few hours more but still on restricted income would get other top ups but no FSM.

At Primary School we all just queued up in the same queue. I don't remember needing to do anything different, I guess that fact that I didn't join the throng giving dinner money envelopes to the teachers would have given it away.

At High School I started going home for lunch as lived very close to school. I know other kids had to get a token but I don't remember anyone making a big deal of it.

We lived in a poor area though and lots of people had free school meals. Being labelled 'poor' was more about clothes and hair than meals tbh.

I certainly don’t remember anyone saying ‘free school meals’ when we did the dinner register! I wouldn’t have had a clue.

I got free school meals from 1990 to around 1995. My parents had a mortgage and both worked, we just fell below the income threshold. We didn't ever have new clothes or toys but were well fed at home and certainly didn't live in what I'd consider poverty.

Oh, and you went to the office in the morning to get a token - either paying or a free one so it wouldn't have been obvious who was getting what. Thinking about it now - my parents were on what was called "income support" I was very young though so I don't know the details.

@ProfYaffle it wasn't a big deal at our school either. A few of my friends had the tokens, some for a while, some all the way through school. But nobody at our school had loads of money anyway. There was often a bit of (what I see now as) post ironic meta piss taking from them because their tokens bought them more than what those of us with cash from parents bought and ofc you'd laugh along but know they weren't lucky really. There's one of our group in particular who having lost touch with I've got quite close to via Facebook in the last few years and we've met up a few times, which has been lovely. But as I've got to know her as an adult she's shared things about her childhood and adolescence that are truly appalling. She wasn't just poor but neglected. So maybe in all that non judginess let people get on with it attitude things were missed.

I got free school meals all my school life mid 80s onwards. A woman would look for those she knew qualified while we were in the dinner queue and go down handing out orange tickets. In front of everyone.

It was mortifying. We were poor as poor could get (St Vincent de Paul clothes, Salvation Army Christmases, food bank).

I was on free school meals in primary in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I don’t remember school making a big thing of it or being any different to those who paid when you got your lunch, I think the staff just knew due to it being a small school. We were very poor looking back, 2 parents but my father had ill health and my mum worked one shift a week in care home and I remember she got family allowance.

Secondary school was awful there was a separate till for free meal pupils so it was obvious to the whole canteen who was on them and people were mean. I also remember I had no branded sports wear like my friends and a cheap school bag which I was teased for.

Luckily my mother decided when I was 13 to go back into her career in the NHS as they were short staffed and offering short cuts to return, so we went from very poor to what seemed like really well off very quickly. I was still bullied for being poor for a long time though and I remember when I finally did have branded items other kids saying they were fake and off the market!

Yes.
At my secondary school, (started in 1990) you had to stand in a different line for the dinner hall if you got FSMs.
One of the reasons my lovely mum never claimed them, even though we would have been eligible.

@Shelby, you, as a child thought that the kids in fsm parents were just lazy?

We had them for a few years in the mid 80s when my dad was made redundant. There was no differentiation between those on free and paid lunches. We also got clothing tokens that were meant for school uniform. My primary school didn’t have a uniform though but my mum still spent them on uniform clothes so I felt like the odd one out. It was really horrible. I can remember someone telling her that she could use the tokens just on normal clothes. It really sticks in my mind.

I really don’t remember in primary school, but in secondary there were tokens and then cards. I’m a secondary teacher and now we have cashless catering so the fsm pupils just use a pin code like everyone else, but their accounts are automatically topped up rather than parents doing it. You would never know the difference. It’s much better.

I was on fsm at primary school between about 1980 and 1984. I cant remember what the system was at my school but don't remember being singled out or picked on for it, didn't know who else was on fsm.

I remember my mum talking about Family Allowance? Was that a benefit?

I did get FSM on and off depending on if my stepfather was in work or not. My mum didn’t really work for the whole time I was at school as I was the oldest of 3 spaced out babies. It wasn’t until I was in college that she got a job.

In secondary school we had to collect a token at the front of the lunch hall and give it in to the servers. No one teased or bullied because the school was on an inner city sink estate and the kids on FSM were not ones to mess with.

Family allowance is now child benefit.

@Suzysleep your parents can’t have both been working and claiming Income support.