'My teachers buy food and clothes for pupils'

A head teacher has said staff regularly help struggling families with food, stationery and clothes.

Almost half (45%) of senior teachers who responded to a survey commissioned by BBC News said their school had supported families financially in the last 12 months.

Hazel Boyce, from Saint Benedict Catholic Voluntary Academy in Derby, said she was not surprised by the results.

She added: "It is a very common picture. I would say every single staff member in some way has done something."

Mrs Boyce says her school has a food bank, which was set up seven years ago and is mostly stocked by teachers.

She added she also knows staff use their own money to buy stationery and equipment for pupils.

Some teachers at the school have also given children "whole pencil cases stocked full of stuff", buy calculators and provide food.

"Whether it is food or queuing up with children at dinner time and making sure they can have something extra... we will always feed a child," Mrs Boyce said.

On Wednesday, Mrs Boyce took a bag of clothes her son had grown out of into school, because "there is a family I know who...will really benefit from that".

BBC News commissioned survey tool Teacher Tapp to ask teachers and school leaders in England about the extra support their schools were providing for children.

The survey also found two thirds (66%) of senior teachers say their school provided food for pupils to eat outside school hours in the last 12 months.

While approximately one in seven teachers (15%) say they have spent their own money to provide food to struggling families.

Mrs Boyce said: "It is an increasing problem."

She added one of the biggest challenges schools faced was that "external agencies - social care - for example CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), social housing, are at stretched capacity".

She said: "We have helped families to be re-homed."

Mrs Boyce added every school "will have multiple stories to tell of going above and beyond to help families".

In response to our survey findings on the extra support being offered by schools, a government spokesperson said schools funding was increasing by £2.3bn.

They also pointed to the introduction of free breakfast clubs and a cap on the amount of expensive branded school uniform items parents have to buy.

"More widely we are developing a strategy to reduce child poverty which will be published this spring," they added.

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