22.5% of pupils in English schools were eligible for free school meals (FSM) in January - an increase of 160,000 on last year's figure - described as "shocking" by headteachers' leaders.
School leaders' Unions warned that these pupils' circumstances could become even "more severe" due to the #CostOfLivingCrisis & called for additional funding "for both educational & pastoral support".
No doubt the Mail & Tory MPs will ramp up their anti-union rhetoric, as usual.
Pupils in England are eligible for FSM if their parent or carer is entitled to certain benefits, such as Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance.
The proportion of eligible pupils was rising even before the pandemic, from 13.6% in 2018, but shot up to 20.8% in 2021.
Schools get extra funding (pupil premium) for each of their students on FSM - but not all students who are eligible claim FSM.
FSM eligibility varies between different schools: 23% in state-funded primaries; 21% in secondaries; special schools 44.7%; pupil referral units 54.6%.
In state-funded nurseries (where children are eligible if they meet the criteria & attend for full days) the figure rose to a new high of 8.6% & primary numbers may continue to rise.
FSM eligibility has big regional variations: 29.1% in the North East & 17.6% in the South East.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the #NAHT school leaders' union, warned that the children who have become newly eligible for FSM are "disproportionately drawn from more #disadvantaged areas & are largely those pupils who already needed more support."
Schools are "increasingly struggling" to give support due to "overstretched budgets & the erosion of the value of pupil premium funding since 2015. Additional funding is urgently needed for both educational & pastoral support. Children who are hungry are not ready to learn."
Teachers & school leaders are increasingly having to tackle the impact of #poverty before they can even start teaching.
"Free school meals eligibility should be extended to every child from a family in receipt of Universal Credit, with auto-enrolment."
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School & College Leaders (ASCL) union, said it was "shocking" to see so many children living in extremely difficult financial circumstances - & another 800,000 children living in #poverty do not even qualify for the meals.
"Even more shocking is the fact that current eligibility does not even capture all the children who need help. Free school meal eligibility now applies to 22.5% of pupils, but we know that the level of child poverty is about 30%."
While the @Conservatives have wasted £BILLIONS, & their Party depends almost entirely on their grotesquely wealthy donors, more than 2 MILLION adults in the UK have gone without food for a whole day over the past month because they cannot afford to eat.
The latest survey of the nation’s food intake shows a 57% jump in the proportion of households cutting back on food or skipping meals over the first three months of this year, with one in seven adults (7.3 MILLION) estimated to be food-insecure, up from 4.7 million in January.
We've not arrived at this abhorrent & unnecessary situation overnight - it's the consequence of a long-term plan by deranged free-market fundamentalists, & if UK citizens were sufficiently informed about it, the Tories would NEVER form a Govt ever again.
Alondra Nelson and Ami Fields-Meyer both served in the White House as technology policy advisers to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, & now they are sounding the alarm about the AI Dangers of a Second Trump Presidency.
The Biden-Harris administration laid out a serious, rigorous, comprehensive theory of AI governance–offering a framework for its responsible stewarding to unlock its potential benefits AND address a range of issues, from job loss to data privacy to distrust of tech companies.
Americans who care about democracy, justice & the planet have to come together to prevent another Trump administration, which would attempt to introduce the regressive, antidemocratic & dangerously irresponsible policies laid out in the Heritage Foundation's #Project2025
Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee.
Before outlining some essential information about Harris, I'll quickly summarise the process be for choosing the Democratic nominee as described by Newsweek.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison said that the party would "undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November."
Professor of History & Public Policy at Duke University & author of the terrifying award-winning bestseller 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America', Nancy MacLean, recently discussed #Project2025.
Law professor & social critic Kimberlé Crenshaw interviewed MacLean about what the prescriptions in the Heritage Foundation’s #Project2025 mean for parents, public schools, & for multiracial democracy.
CRENSHAW: These wars on curricula are not new, of course; they go far back in our history. What folks might not know is that the Heritage Foundation, the main convenor of #Project2025, cut its teeth on curricular wars in the 1970s.
'The Republican blueprint for power contains the seeds of its own demise. It is not too late to stop the descent of the American political order into tyranny, oligarchy or anarchy', writes Timothy Snyder.
Pete Buttigieg is an American politician and former naval officer who is serving as the 19th United States secretary of transportation. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, which earned him the nickname "Mayor Pete".
Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Oxford, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship. From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant.
Hitler survived assassination attempts. We know what that led to. Reagan & Thatcher survived assassination attempts. They gave us neoliberalism. Trump survived. He's chosen JD Vance as his running mate. If elected, America will become a dystopian free-market kleptocracy.
The 0.01% is gearing up to all but destroy US democracy.
Leading the charge & donating tens of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign are Silicon Valley's libertarian Tech billionaire extremists, led by Peter Thiel & Elon Musk - two of the most dangerous men on earth.
What's unfolding right now is like something from a dystopian sci-fi novel.
Except it's not fiction - it's real.
And it's a fucking nightmare assault on truth, fairness, equality, minorities, women's right, the environment & humanity, which democracy will struggle to survive.