More food banks are being set up in schools in England to help feed students’ families.
According to the National Governance Association's (NGA) annual survey, 8% of governors were in schools which had food banks in 2019, an increase from 7% from last year.
The highest proportion was found in the north east, where 13% of governors came from schools with a food bank.
Schools are facing "rising levels of poverty,” said Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union. "It is a shameful situation in a country which is among the wealthiest in the world.”
Funding shortages and teacher recruitment are the major problems of schools, according to cchool governors, who are parents or representatives of the local community, warned that were among the biggest problems.
The NGA survey, which asked 6,000 governors about the challenges being faced by schools, revealed the concern about offering welfare services to families. These include running food banks, offering meals beyond term time, and washing students’ clothes and uniforms.
Most of the schools with food banks, which offer emergency supplies of food, were in the north east of England and the west midlands and London. They were believed to be in nursery and primary schools than in secondary.
NGA also revealed that 2% of nursery school governors reported that their schools were providing emergency loans to parents.
"There is an increasing demand on schools to take responsibility for more areas of children's lives than simply their education," said NGA chief executive, Emma Knights.
"School staff have an increased burden of providing welfare services because of chronic underfunding in other areas and particularly cuts to local authority services," said Knights.
“But relying on schools for welfare services was "not a satisfactory solution,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Association of School and College Leaders found in its survey of more than 400 schools earlier in 2019 that 43% of schools were offering families help with food.
