Mp’s asking for £700 for FSM children

[Struggling2020]

Thoughts on this?

news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-school-closures-will-worsen-north-south-education-divide-say-mps-11980290

Maybe I’m bitter (actually I AM bitter) but it’s not just the poorest kids who are struggling. In fact my friends on full benefits are the most secure right now out of all of us, they can focus 100% of their time and attention on their kids as no work to do from home and they’re still getting FSM with no worries about losing their jobs or reduction in income, intact according to them, benefits have gone up this month. (Fully appreciate this may not be the case all round)

In my experience, It’s those of us in the squeezed middle struggling! Trying to work and homeschool, struggling financially as everyone at home for lunches as opposed to usual nursery/ks1 free lunch. Worried about our jobs and what the future holds. Many of us forced onto reduced hours.

I understand statistically that those on FSM are more likely to fall behind. But is this another way of trying to disguise the issues? Trying to fit people into boxes of how we can help. The rich will be fine, the poor will be helped, the middle will be forgotten?

I think I need perspective.... my AIBU

AIBU to think it is not just FSM children who are disadvantaged by the current situation and actually, the problem is much bigger than that?

Pupil premium money isn’t spent on individual children only pupil premium plus money is ( children previously /currently in care or forces children)
The £700 will just be added to the pp budget and spent on things that mostly benefit the whole class.

Thank you I mean

You got to get clever about how you cook and what you cook. A roast chicken will easily, easily, provide 4 substantial dinners and then sliced chicken for sandwiches. I've never managed to do much else with the darned thing, but it does provide that much. So £3, some potatoes and carrots, a bit of gravy and you've dinner for 4 people (unless you're feeding teenagers).

Eh? The £700 is a grant for each extra disadvantaged child for the education budget. They’re not giving them £700. Why are your talking about family incomes op? This is nothing to do with family finances. It’s about the fact that many children (I understand not all) in the lowest income bracket or on benefits are at a massive disadvantage educationally, for all sorts of reasons.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe and Struggling2020. Maybe you do think I'm obnoxious and judgemental, but I won't lose any sleep over it. It's a long while ago admittedly, but if I could bring up a child when I was a 17-yr-old single mother without resorting to handouts, so can others. You give children what you can afford---not what you think they 'deserve'...and then expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab.

If 25% of your income goes on food, you must be eating a lot of steak or something?
Erm, that depends on the income. 25% of £1000 say, is £250.
Not much room for steak is there!

With the exception of those with millionaire and billionaire owners, I don't begrudge businesses the many thousands of pounds in grants and loans, and I don't begrudge those employees being furloughed receiving 80% of their salary up to £2,500 per month. Yet, the OP begrudges the poorest and most disadvantaged children in our society a grand total of - maybe, it's not even agreed yet - £700 as a one off? The money would not even go to the family but to the school, just as Pupil Premium does now. Yes, others will be disadvantaged, but we are talking about helping the most disadvantaged here, the already disadvantaged, the long-term disadvantaged. The OP admits to being bitter, and there is certainly a nasty aftertaste from reading their - and those agreeing - mean-spirited and poor-bashing posts. We have a very vulnerable loved one who doesn't quite make it on to the government's 'extremely vulnerable' list, which means we are not entitled to any help at all while shielding them. It's tough, but we are doing our level best to manage. Do I begrudge those who are entitled to the help? No, I do not. I am glad they are getting it and I count my blessings, as hard as our own situation is, that we are not in their position. I truly hope that the disadvantage the OP & family feels or experiences will only be temporary in their life and I hope the bitterness is too, because it's not healthy.

I'd divide up chicken depending on what people like, but typically, you could give a leg, and a wing to two people. Then carve up the breast and divide that between a further 2. Then you've a whole breast left for sandwiches the next day.
Other thing I bought in the 3 for £9 deal was a gammon joint. Boil that and you've meals for about 2 days. Definitely enough for 4 dinners twice.

Prontoe, there's no shame at all, I would do the same. I hate that you feel so badly and I loath the posters who with their privilege, judge others so harshly.

My friends son is the brightest kid I know, genius levels, he will be eligible

You understand of course that tutoring and education is every bit as relevant to the brightest kids as any others, the aim is not to get everyone up to some minimum level.

Don't begrudge people doing worse than you, find out ways to help yourself and help others, and if shit happens, know that you will still fall no lower than them in their finances.

In my area you need to earn less than £6000 a year to "qualify" for free school meals so if you were working full time in a good job and lost it chances are you wont qualify it goes on your total income for the year I was "fortunate" I was £7 under when i lost my job so my kids get the support.....

Ds is entitled to FSM but I’ve never claimed as exdp pays for his dinners. Someone told me I should have? Is that correct? Bit late now as he is year 10.

I don’t see what is so wrong with @grindergirl post. We could all eat relatively well if we cooked from scratch and cut out snacks and bottled drinks. I’m fortunate in that I do not currently need to but I remember in leaner times living off soups and stews (soup with less water!!) and lots if veg. It was fine

£700 is a drop in the ocean and FSM is an indicator of poorer attainment. It isn't cut and dried, but it is more reliable than anything else we have. With an obviously small pot of money to spend, we have to have an indicator and this is the best we have. As with the funding schools get for children eligible for FSM (and those eligible in the past 6 years), you can use it in such a way to fund interventions that non-eligible pupils can piggy back on to and I suspect most schools will do that, especially if non-FSM children will be judged as needing to make appropriate progress.

I don’t mean claim now, she meant claimed throughout the years.

'FSM' kids, and their 'freebies' huh?
Food AND some help with education???
Yes, it's them that's the problem OP.
Climb up a rung and kick the ladder away - quick.
You know it's the right thing to do...

Or, you could read what Chillyegg said

grindergirl, I see. You're one of those. I've learned (from an excellent thread) that these are called 'dementors'. They are a band of people who haunt these boards to spread misery and spite. They've had it tough so they celebrate when other people do too. Anybody they can hold down is a victory to them.

I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over it.

OP, if you're struggling, it really is easy to roast a chicken. It involves wiping down surfaces a bit, but once it's in the oven, it's away! Then peel potatoes (I admit they're expensive) and chop some veg like carrots (50p for a kilo) or do some frozen veg if you don't have time to prep the veg (pain in the arse admittedly). Make the gravy out of the juices and some gravy granules and you've a gorgeous dinner for less than £1 per person. Don't buy snacks and shit (or if you do, go to Lidl or the pound shops). Fruit is expensive - I'll give you that - but go for things like bananas and plums or something. Berries are expensive.

Doggybiccys that rather depends if you have ready access to shops, electricity, cooking facilities and all of those in unlimited supplies, doesn't it? I could knock up a soup very easily, I have a kitchen with plentiful herbs and spices, a car, a job that enables me to call in anywhere to buy anything I need - and I have the money to buy in the quantities that make cooking economical when I want or need it to be.

Not everybody has that privilege.

The families that are no better off are those hit by the benefit cap who won't see any benefit from the rise.

But that is the case across the board with barriers and limits, you only have to see the outcry on MN when the Child benefit cap of 50k came into place.

Where ever you place the limit there will be some seeing it as unfair, I don't think the OP is benefit bashing and she does have a point of you squint enough but even if OP got the extra means testing (not sure how you would do it) there would be still plenty of people complaining that they where excluded.

Guess what OP - you can go "on benefits" too, if it's such a good way to live.

As an aside, I wish people would make it clear in thread titles that they are referring to England.

Doggybiccys, sorry, my post wasn't intended to be so pointed. I know what it's like to be down to a few pounds before payday. I have no bloody idea what it's like to lose sleep over it.

I didn't have a problem with grindergirl saying whip up a soup, it's good advice. I had a big problem with her saying that 'people who couldn't are 'less than'. People are not 'less than' because they're not able to do something - for whatever reason - that others can.

I think you'd (general) have to be a spiteful sort of person to pick a thread like this to make that comment on. But, we're all different - and I'm glad of that.

My food shop was £60 a week for 4, hardly steaks and caviar.

I haven’t begrudged FSM kids anything, I’ve said others should get help in addition to them, I’m certainly not speaking from a place of privilege.

Some of you are either unable or unwilling to read what’s been written in favour of pushing your own agendas because a hell of a lot of what’s been said has not come from me.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe Had to look up the dementor word. Last time I peered in the mirror, I didn't seem to be a wraith-like creature from some Harry Potter fantasy. 'Haunt these boards'...I fear you are letting your imagination run away with you

grindergirl, As I said, the only bit of your post I found abhorrent was the 'anybody who can't/doesn't do this is '. I think you understand that. I wonder why you said it and then justified it? I also wonder at the motivation of posters to do that on a thread where somebody is struggling. You don't have to answer, obviously.

Yes, the dementor is from Harry Potter but it's an apt description of how some posters on Mumsnet are sucking the life out of the board with their competitive misery and spite. I don't understand the appeal of living that way but, we're all different.