The Cost of Living Emergency is affecting more and more families. Most areas are seeing a steep rise in the number of children living in poverty.
Free School Meals were introduced by the Lib Dems in Government during the coalition for children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes. This policy has helped millions of families and given peace of mind to parents who know their children will receive a hot, nutritious meal at school.
The National Education Union (NEU) is running a campaign to extend free school meals to all Primary School children. Local councillors can sign an NEU open letter to the Prime Minister HERE.
The Lib Dems too have called for free school meals to be extended to all children in primary education and to all secondary school children whose families receive Universal Credit, because research shows children not eating a healthy diet will not perform as well at school as those who are well nourished.
Earlier this year the Government increased funding for Free School Meals by just 7 pence per meal – significantly below the rate of inflation this year. This has resulted in a real-terms cut in funding for schools.
ALDC has produced some resources to help you campaign for extending Free School Meals in your area – and for better funding from the Government.
Data for your Local Area
You will need to localise our template resources with data from your own area – namely the number of children living in poverty and the real-term cut in school meal funding this year. You can find these on the links below:
- NEU data on the number of children living in poverty in your area – here
- Real-term cut in Free School Meal funding this year – here
ALDC Templates
- Focus Drop-In Article – Affinity – PDF
- Template Press Release
- Template Website / Blog Article