An education one to get cross about..

[pfrench]

.. the government has announced that it is NOT going to extend the Free School Meals vouchers system over the summer holidays.

So, after 3 months, at the point where low income families might really be struggling, the government is going to take away a safety net. For all their talk of protecting vulnerable children, at crunch point, they are going to make their lives worse.

Write to your MP.

This is very true. Our local school usually opens for food parcels over the summer for local families (from the food bank) and also provides two weeks of activities for them.
Obviously none of this can happen. I wonder if anyone will acknowledge the lack of support these families will get over the summer when schools are closed ?
Sad really as that school has been open through all of this with teachers / school staff delivering food parcels before the voucher scheme actually started to work weeks into the pandemic.

Do you think maybe that the massed ranks of teacher blamers on here actually don’t give a flying one about poor and vulnerable children unless it suits their narrative? Spot on.

I don't like the stigma, couldn't they have the gift cards lots of supermarkets do? I remember standing behind a woman in a supermarket queue, she had milk tokens and something wouldn't work so the cashier held the vouchers over her head and called to the supervisor for help with the free milk tokens. The woman was nearly in tears and said she didn't want everyone knowing she got tokens.

I wish I could have said something but I couldn't think what would make the situation better, me saying something just seemed as if it would draw more attention to it.

Maybe she was too sensitive, maybe I am as well.

Oh the voucher system was awful. For nearly everyone involved. We had one situation where a mum took them into Aldi. £90 worth. They were 'used' at the till, but didn't go through, and that was that - they hadn't worked, and then didn't work. So she was sat with £90 of food that she wasn't allowed to take home, and no £90 either.

Therebare a number of summer schemes round here (run/subsidised by the council and charities. I haven't seen anythung tomsay they have been cancelled (yet). If all/most of them do go ahead it will be no worse than any other year.

And I noticed that since schools closed,a local private school kept its kitchen running and was providing the lunches to its own keyworker family pupils, those in several nearby primaries, and for a FSM support in the community scheme.

I will write to my MP and find out what my local school is doing and if I can help. I hadn’t seen this in the news and again it’s the children with no voice that get left behind.

Email sent. Thanks, @pfrench

Disgraceful
I don't understand why the government is doing this

Free School Meals vouchers should be extended over summer
(imo this should happen every year, anyway)

Low income families normally struggle over the long vacation,
but this summer will be much worse than usual - many will have lost income and even got into debt

I find it particularly that some posters on here will say that the parents should work. As if it was that easy.

For by the fact the children are vulnerable. They need help. But society and by those in society who will advocate for them.

I truly despair at some of the attitudes I see here.

Children did not ask to be born into toxic, violent, poor or whatever families.

We must help them and give them all the chances we can to level the playing field.

Totally agree- have emailed my MP. Waiting to hear what bullshit reason he comes back with.

So what do those families usually do in the school holidays?

Struggle, go without, starve - what did you think they do?

It’s another example of how schools have had to pick up the pieces of government cuts with decreasing resources. And it’s shocking that this issue has generated so little traffic when threads about how ‘teachers doing nothing’ are all about how vulnerable students are being disadvantaged. Of course they are, but that’s not really what those posters care about, is it?

Not good, well done for publicising this problem.

Ugh talk about privilege on this thread. Weeks ago people were 'wheeling out' the vulnerable as the reason schools MUST open. Now they couldn't give two fucks and it is all 'get a job', 'what do they usually do'.

They usually suffer and stave that is what. Anyone who works with children will tell you, the summer holiday is a big worry for adults working with families. So many children go without and go hungry over the holidays.

This place disgusts me sometimes. Quick to champion the vulnerable when it suits, but doesn't actually give two shits if it they do not benefit. Disgusting.

It is indeed a worry and has always been in school holidays. I am guessing what will happen is what usually does charities, churches and other organisations stepping in to help.

I totally agree. It is a brutal time to pull the plug on that scheme.

Presumably there are more children in this category than there would normally be. I've heard of schools (in normal years) who has lunch clubs in the summer and of course lots of schools had breakfast available to pupils as well as the dinners. A voucher is a safe alternative. How much would it actually cost?

My DCs school (read ht’s credit card) in a not very deprived area was in the region of thousands for supermarket vouchers in place of free school meals for the first fortnight of lockdown