Fears of widespread child hunger spark calls for universal free school meals in UK

theguardian.com:

Hunger will be the “single biggest challenge” schools face as children return to classrooms in the coming weeks, sparking calls for the government to introduce universal free school meals to help tackle the crisis.

Already, 800,000 children living in poverty in England do not qualify for free school meals, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, and now headteachers are bracing for rising numbers from homes that cannot afford to feed them properly.

“Last winter, I already had a group of children who stood round the radiator outside my office every morning because they had no heating on at home and needed to warm up,” said Paul Gosling, head of Exeter Road community primary school in Exmouth. “We will have far more children turning up to school hungry.”

Gosling, who is president of the National Association of Head Teachers union, said his school was worrying about how to afford to keep the lights on, “let alone helping families”, but said he would not let any child stay hungry.

Jonny Uttley, CEO of the Education Alliance academy trust, which runs seven schools in Hull and East Riding, said: “This [food poverty] is the single biggest challenge schools will face. More and more children will turn up to school hungry. It will go well beyond the definition of free school meals now.”

He added that “even before the horrific energy cap rises”, he was planning measures such as breakfast clubs and uniform vouchers because of rising poverty in his schools. But now “the potential scale of the problem is so much worse”.

In England, all infant schoolchildren are entitled to free school meals from reception to year two, but beyond that only children whose parents earn less than £7,400 a year are eligible. But the rise in the price cap