Friday 13 December 2013
Children’s charities join unions and Church to write to Education Secretary following Autumn Statement
Children
in Scotland, Children 1st, Save the Children, One Parent Families
Scotland and the Child Poverty Action Group have today joined the Educational
Institute of Scotland (EIS), STUC, UNISON and the Church of Scotland in
pressing for a commitment that free healthy school lunches will be rolled out
to all Scottish primary school pupils in primaries 1 to 3 next year.
The
call follows last week’s Autumn Statement announcement that the Scottish
Government is to receive £308 million extra spending resource, including
consequentials from confirmation that all pupils in the first three years of
English primary school will get a free school lunch from September 2014.
In their letter to the Education Secretary Michael Russell the organisations say prioritising investment in a free healthy school lunch for pupils in P1 to P3 would provide a “well evidenced, direct and immediate boost to the wellbeing of children and families across Scotland”.
In their letter to the Education Secretary Michael Russell the organisations say prioritising investment in a free healthy school lunch for pupils in P1 to P3 would provide a “well evidenced, direct and immediate boost to the wellbeing of children and families across Scotland”.
The
signatories, who also include Shelter and the Poverty Alliance, go on to
say that “a universal approach in the early years has been demonstrated to have
a positive impact on the take up of healthy school lunches, on children’s
readiness to learn and attainment, and on supporting family budgets and home
life”.
A
universal approach to free school meals in P1 to P3 was announced by the
Scottish Government in 2007 and reaffirmed in 2010 following successful pilots
across five Scottish local authorities. Councils were later given flexibility
on how they rolled out the commitment. However, to date, no local authority has
implemented the policy in full, “a matter of real concern and disappointment”
according to the free school meal campaigners.
In
response to a previous letter from the organisations the Education Secretary
said that that the UK government had been unable to provide confirmation of
consequential funding arising from the its own free school meals commitment and
that only following the Autumn Statement “when we see the financial
implications for Scotland…..can we then determine how best to further increase
eligibility” for free school meals.
Satwat
Rehman, Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland, a leading
member of the Scottish Free School Meals Campaign said;
'The
benefits of free school meals are particularly important to children from low
income families but poor diet and obesity affects children from all
backgrounds. Healthy free school meals have been shown to help tackle
health inequalities, as well as reducing the poverty trap faced by parents
trying to move into employment. One Parent Families Scotland
wants to see every primary school child receive a free school meal every
day.'
Larry
Flanagan, EIS General Secretary, a signatory to the letter, said;
“Ensuring
that all pupils in P1 to P3 receive a free school meal would be a
significant step, which would aid family budgets, bring important health
benefits for young children and help these pupils concentrate on their
learning throughout the school day”
John
Dickie, Head of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland another signatory to
the letter, added;
"The Scottish Government has led the way in piloting
and committing to universal school lunches. The Autumn Statement now provides
the financial details Scottish Ministers said they needed before delivering on
their long-standing commitment. Prioritising investment in universal free
school meals in primary one to three will provide immediate protection to families against rising levels of
child and food poverty and at the same time help ensure all our
children are able to get the most out of the school day.”
Ends
Notes:
1. Anti-poverty campaigners, children’s organizations,
trade unions and faith groups have long argued that the most effective way of
ensuring all children, but particularly those in poverty, receive a healthy
school lunch is to move toward a universal, non means tested approach to the
provision of healthy lunches in the middle of the school day (see http://www.cpag.org.uk/scotland/school-meals ) .
2. Since 2007 SNP governments have made important
progress in increasing the number of children, particularly in primary schools,
who receive a healthy school lunch by extending entitlement to those in very
low income working families and by enabling local authorities to provide free
school meals to all P1 to P3 pupils with a policy objective of moving toward
universal free school meals for all in P1 to P3 (For
details see see para 3.4 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/06/4917/8#s343
)
3. The SNP government’s pilot trials of universal
provision of free school meals to all P1 to P3 pupils in 2007/8 demonstrated a
substantial effect on take up of school meals, increasing overall take up by 22
percentage points from 53% to 75%. Furthermore, amongst children already
entitled to free school meals take-up rose by 4.4 percentage points[i],
and in some areas up to 8.5 percentage points.
4. Further recent research from the Institute for
Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex[ii] also analysed
the wider impact of the Scottish Government’s free school meal pilots. The
paper “attributes the rise in take-up of FSMs by those always entitled to a
positive peer effect: FSM-registered individuals became more likely to
participate because a greater proportion of other students in the school were
doing so….The magnitude of the effect is such that in a typical school a 10
percentage point rise in peer-group take-up would reduce non-participation (ie
non take up by those already entitled) by almost a quarter.”
5. Evaluation[iii] of the pilots
also pointed to a positive impact on family budgets and the home environment.
There was, the evaluation concluded, “…evidence that the trial had impacted
positively on the home environment of pupils,” and “.. the simple
benefit of increasing disposable income was particularly evident amongst
parents with more than one child.”
6. The universal approach has not only been shown to
increase take up of healthy lunches and relief to family budgets but also to
impact positively on children’s learning experience. Evaluation of a free
school meals pilot for primary school children over two years in Hull found a
“significant impact in all areas of children's schooling...behaviour, social
relationships, health and learning”[iv], whilst more recent evaluation of the provision of free school meals to
all primary pupils in Durham and Newham found that “offering free school meals
to all primary school pupils increased attainment in disadvantaged areas”[v]
[iv][iv]Prof.
Derek Colquhoun, Hull Uni, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1995361,00.html
No comments:
Post a Comment