AIBU to think there is a stigma attached to taking up Free School Meals?

[cingolimama]

Would really value MNers experience here. DH and I have had a pretty disastrous year financially (redundancy for DH, drying up of contracts for me). However we are both working hell for leather to turn this around. In the meantime we're eligible for FSM, which frankly would be a big help. I also know that it helps the school gain a Pupil Premium.

But I'm a bit nervous about this. I don't want my daughter to be "targeted for help" as I believe anyone benefiting from FSM is (but perhaps I'm being idiotic - DD could surely use a booster in maths dept.) I also don't want any social stigma attached to this. It's a mixed school socially, but the majority is very middle class. Has anyone had any negative experience of taking this up? Or AIBU and it will all be fine?

Sunrunner, I do realise that the PP is not only given for FSMs or reasons of income.

I think it's fine to use these indicators to identify groups of children as a whole, and to use these figures statistically.

But in a classroom situation, they don't need to be differentiated from their peers. All children need to have their needs met, regardless of whether they can be identified as fitting into a group that is statistically disadvantaged or not.

Like you say, your child is not typical of the group he belongs to, and there are many many children like that, from all groups, including the ones that are statistically more likely to achieve. But IME, the children from the groups that are identified as more likely to achieve just because they don't fit into one of the boxes are likely not to have their needs met to the same degree as the other children.

Teachers are able to access extra support from their heads and outside agencies when children don't succeed academically or have behaviour problems as long as those children can be categorised as being disadvantaged in some way. But try and get extra support for a child that comes from a middle class family who doesn't tick any of the boxes, and support just isn't there.

I think that's wrong.

That's not my experience. No outside agency has ever said to me 'Not FSM? Sorry, can't help.'

Well, we get WTC, and we can't get a thing, despite actually earning UNDER the eligibility for FSM for people on CTC. It is unfair, as I see it, that I can be working, earning, trying to earn a crust and not get FSM which would REALLY help us, and others who are claiming more and getting more, can. As a family we are suffering redundancy and a massive drop in income to just one wage and one self employed part-time wage. We earn about 14K, all told. We get, hopefully, some day soon, 50 quid per week WTC. My god, FSM would really help us. But we're not entitled. If I were on CTC, I would be.

I suppose in my experience, the first time I aware of having something done purely for those children with the pp was the week of activities this year.

Previously I thought the extra money just went into the schools budget as an extra and didn't have to specifically enhance the education of the individual child. That must be the case in some schools though.

Does the pp have to be used in a specific way?

no it is just extra money for the school to be used at the head's discretion

That's what I thought burberryqueen, so in reality it helps all children at the school.

The vast majority of children on FSM come from households where adults are in work.
The national minimum wage works out at £12304.50 for a full time job.
The cutoff for FSM is £17500 ish
many children have parents working part time on low pay so will get FSM even though both parents work

The vast majority of children on FSM come from households where adults are in work

If you work and get WTC Im pretty sure your child is not eligible for FSMs.

Eligibility criteria
Income Support

Income Based Jobseekers Allowance

An income-related employment and support allowance

Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

Child Tax Credit, but not receiving Working Tax Credit, and your annual income does not exceed £16,190

The guarantee element of State Pension Credit

Parents receiving Working Tax Credit for four weeks after their employment finishes are entitled to free school meals during that period. This also applies to parents who start working less than 16 hours per week

You are not entitled to Free School Meals if you receive Working Tax Credit except where the '4 weekrun-on' applies as described above

what about the under 16 hours a week ....

interesting, they have clearly narrowed it at the same time as promoting it - no wonder the schools want that dosh

If you work under 16 hrs a week you aren't entitled to WTC are you?

Children eligible for FSM are as a cohort less likely to achieve their potential than children who aren't. That is a incontrovertible fact- all you have to do is look at the "narrowing the gap" section of your school's stats to see that. This isn't casting aspersions at your particular individual child- it doesn't say that applies to every child. Your child might be smashing through his targets and achieving like nobody's business. T most won't be. And putting provisions in place for children who are identified as a group as needing extra support is just practical common sense, surely.

in a two parent household ... but its 24 for single parent still isn't it ?
Either way
If you are eligible, take it : use the chance to lighten pressure on your own finances and help the school while you are having hard times and then come back off FSM when employment improves

Think its always been 16 for single parents. not 24, think thats the two parent household.

Thirty ago, there was definitely a stigma attached to FSM.
My mother was a single parent and as a result my siblings and i were entitled to FSM. However, my mother was worried that we would be stigmatized and instead preferred to pay for our dinners.

So if me or Dh earned 50K and DS who is dyslexic would not be classed as socially deprived/poor/struggling/under acheiving etc etc BUT if we were claiming FSM for him due to redundancy he'd automatically be viewed totally differently ie: dyslexic and socially deprived/poor/struggling/under acheiving etc etc.

See the two things don't fit at all!

Curles - "Children eligible for FSM are as a cohort less likely to achieve their potential than children who aren't. That is a incontrovertible fact- all you have to do is look at the "narrowing the gap" section of your school's stats to see that. This isn't casting aspersions at your particular individual child- it doesn't say that applies to every child. Your child might be smashing through his targets and achieving like nobody's business. T most won't be. And putting provisions in place for children who are identified as a group as needing extra support is just practical common sense, surely."

Honestly, teachers do not have lower expectations of pupils on FSM, we don't judge the parents or child - I am a teacher who received FSM myself as a child. I've seen this issue from both sides. I got the best results in my school year, a prize for distinguished studies at sixth form and a much better degree than my wealthy cousins. There is an correlation at group level between FSM and underachievement, but we aren't daft in school, we see the individual. My highest performing GCSE student this year was on FSM and her parents were highly supportive and interested in her studies, why wouldn't they be? Equally some of the more wealthy parents can be as disinterested as they come. If your child's school doesn't see them as an individual with individual talents and needs then that is a bigger problem than FSM.

Grants, he would be dyslexic and poor, surely, in that scenario?
Unless we think unemployed people are rich.

Curlew - exactly.

Curlew - "Children eligible for FSM are as a cohort less likely to achieve their potential than children who aren't. That is a incontrovertible fact- all you have to do is look at the "narrowing the gap" section of your school's stats to see that. This isn't casting aspersions at your particular individual child- it doesn't say that applies to every child. Your child might be smashing through his targets and achieving like nobody's business. T most won't be. And putting provisions in place for children who are identified as a group as needing extra support is just practical common sense, surely."

And here is the reason why people get annoyed sweeping generalisations, as if there may only be one or two excpetions that prove the rule and in the main their is a link. Nonsense.

But there is a link. It may not be a causal relationship, but there is a connection of some sort.
At the other end, do you think the majority of kids who go to Oxbridge do so purely from hard work and natural talent - or do you think there might be a connection with the income and educational aspirations of their parents, and the ability/desire to send them to private schools?

I received FSM and so did two of my friends. We all got good GCSE and A level results, got places at good universities and got decent degrees.

However I am aware that the majority of the children on FSM in our year didn't.

I would hope though that every child was treated as an individual, rather than sweeping generalisations based on their backgrounds or parental incomes.

What I don't understand is that these circumstances can happen to any one if us. Someone could wake up tomorrow find out they have no job or be so ill they can't work and bam, one child entitled to a FSM. Only he's the same kid as the day before. The one who has supportive parents and is doing well and that's not changed. How can that kid be one day top achiever in the class and the next day part of a statistic that says he won't do so well and need extra support?

I repeat, I don't understand why we can't access them! WTC, less than 16K a year, and I am an ex-teacher ( now a TA) and husband is a redundant business exec now self employed caterer. Our house is full of books, the kids do well, we just need help with maybe not spending so much on lunchboxes, but we get NOWT!

Where I live, the majority of FSM are benefit dependent, and yes, as an ex-teacher, returner to work I do see that there's a need to give extra money, for all sorts of reasons. However, what I am seeing now is an increase in hungry kids who are NOT in receipt of FSM, because they are not eligible. Mine are not included in that, yet, because we have nice in-laws! But they could be, our budget is currently so tight that we have very little leeway. FSM would make a HUGE difference to me, one less thing to worry about. There's a whole new cohort of families out ther who under this government were the "squeezed middle" and are now the "one half redundant" middle, who get no help, as I see it.