|
We know many of you will be worried about the impact of cost of living pressures. This Teacher Bulletin highlights resources and information to help you, your school, as well as your pupils and parents to know where to go to find out about support that may help them and their families.
Holiday Activities and Food programme
The Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) provides healthy food and enriching activities to children and young people, with free places available for those on free school meals. It’s available during the summer, Easter and Christmas school holidays, with the next HAF programmes starting in July 2022.
School holidays can be a particularly difficult time for some families. This free holiday club programme helps children to enjoy active and healthy school holidays, where they can experience new activities, meet friends and eat healthy meals.
This programme will run throughout the summer school holidays in every local authority this year and we encourage you to make your pupil’s parents and carers aware of the scheme and the local clubs in your area.
For information on how your pupils and their families can get involved, please encourage them to contact their local council.
School breakfasts
The National School Breakfast Programme offers children in disadvantaged areas a nutritious breakfast to kick start their day, helping them with their concentration, wellbeing and readiness to learn.
Family Action lead the delivery of the programme and we continue to encourage all eligible schools to sign up if your school has not done so already.
Schools are asked to contribute just 25% towards the cost of the breakfast food in the 2022-23 academic year, and over 2000 schools have signed up already.
Universal free school meals
We recently confirmed that the per-pupil funding rate for universal infant free school meals will be increased.
This means approximately £18 million of new funding for universal infant free school meals will help schools provide for the 1.25 million children in reception, Year 1 and Year 2 with a free, healthy and nutritious lunch, in recognition of the rising cost of living.
If family circumstances change or as children transition between Year 2 and Year 3, we encourage schools to help make sure parents are aware of free school meal support where they are eligible.
National Tutoring Programme: summer tuition
There is still time to provide tutoring support to pupils over the summer period, including July and August utilising the school-led tutoring uplift funds.
To find out how your school could benefit from tutoring and to source the best tuition route for your school, view our how to guide on the options available.
Read how Conexus Tuition implemented a summer school last year for one of their local schools.
School uniforms
School uniform provides a sense of identity and community for children and young people but should never be a burden for parents or a barrier to pupils accessing education.
We published new statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms in November 2021 that requires schools to make sure families get value for money on school uniform and PE kit, including by limiting branded items - which can be more expensive - and allowing families to buy most items from high street retail options, including from supermarkets.
The ‘requirements for schools’ section of the guidance sets out the actions that schools need to take before parents seek to purchase uniform items in summer 2022. This includes a requirement for schools to make sure that second-hand uniforms are available for parents to acquire (either from the school directly or from an established scheme).
Period product scheme
This scheme continues to provide free period products to schools and colleges, to help ensure they are available to everyone young person who needs them.
You can place an order now until Friday 8 July 2022 – read more about how schools and colleges can access the scheme.
Childcare offers for parents
Over a million families in the UK are entitled to support with the costs of childcare from the government, but many don’t realise that they’re eligible. By utilising the different offers, parents and carers with children aged 0–16 could get financial support worth thousands of pounds.
Along with the usual types of childcare (e.g. childminders and nurseries) the support packages can be used across many different types of providers, such as:
- Holiday activity clubs
- School wraparound care
- Extracurricular clubs such and sports, drama, and music tuition
- Religious settings, i.e. Jewish yeshivas and chedarim, Muslim madrassahs and Christian Sunday schools
Schools can help by directing parents and carers the Childcare Choices website, where they can check that they’re not missing out on the support they could be entitled to.
|
