Meet the kind Morley school staff helping to feed Leeds children as families struggle to pay their bills

The gates to the south Leeds primary school had not yet been opened, but eager children were already lining up outside to get what for many would be their first meal of the day.

"People now see a school as the centre of a community,” said headteacher Matthew Fitzpatrick. “When there’s an antisocial behaviour incident in the area, parents sometimes tell us before they tell the police.

"There is only so much we can do.”

As we chatted, two members of school staff were busy preparing a trolley in the playground, full of buttered bagels to be given to each pupil who wanted one.

It was a scheme the school had started before the Covid-19 pandemic, but since realised it had no choice but to continue, such was the desperation of some families in the area.

Julie Keighley, a learning mentor at the school, comes in early to help hand out the bagels to pupils.

“We are here every morning to make sure kids have food in their tummies, ready to start the day,” she said. “Just in the last year, there has been an increase in people needing this help.

"One morning, a few months ago, there was an issue with supplier so we didn’t have a bagel delivery, it was surprising the number of children coming up to us saying ‘do you have any food in the school at all?’.”

The economic ripples of of Covid 19 and the increasing costs of living have, the school says, led some families to seeking more help to keep their children fed over the past year or so.

“We have kids queuing all the way out of the gate on a morning – it was not like that before Covid,” added Julie's colleague Rebecca Woods. “I think a lot more families are struggling now.

"This at least gives them the security that their child will get fed on a morning.

"I think it’s something we’ll have to do, possibly for the long term future – it certainly gets them to school on time.”

School “breakfast clubs” are now becoming the norm across the city, as recent research suggested around a third of children in Leeds were now living in poverty – with around 54,000 babies and children thought to be affected.

Lucy Harrison is a safeguarding and child protection officer working in Morley. She had moved to the area from the South Yorkshire pit village where she grew up, and said she was shocked by what she saw.

“It was surprising to me how many people were having similar problems on vulnerabilities and meeting children’s needs,” she said. “I work with families to support and provide them with things they might need, such as beds and white goods.

"We utilise lots of organisations and charities in Leeds who help with these things.”

Lucy added there had been an increase in the number of families keeping their children away from school.

"This can be due to people not being able to put their washing machine on or being able to dry their clothes,” she said. "Some families are struggling to that extent.

"Sometimes pride can get in the way for people, but there are so many others in the same boat, and we have a scary winter on the way.

"People need to know that there is no shame in asking for help.”

Mr Fitzpatrick believes that, although Morley is not traditionally seen as a particularly deprived area of Leeds, the number of families seeking help from the school shows that cost of living problems are beginning to bite in all parts of the city.

“Sometimes it’s the only breakfast they will have that day,” he said. “Lockdown affected everyone. Some of our harder to reach families became more vulnerable and in need of more support and guidance from the school.

“We do home visits, we do phone calls home, and we have a team of staff to make sure children have that support they need.

"We are obviously limited in how much we can support people with fuel prices and in the cost of living crisis, but I do think it will pinch in the coming months when the tariffs go up for electricity.

"A lot of people pay for their electricity through meters.”

Last week, Prime Minister Liz Truss announced new measures designed to cap the individual energy unit costs, meaning a typical household would pay no more than £2,500. The plans involve reimbursing energy companies with hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash.

"My concern is in the details of some of the measures,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “They are still supporting some of the higher taxpayers, while there are households that require fundamental, rudimentary support.

"I think the Government can do more and should do more, which may require taxing higher earners, but also the energy companies would be the start, because they are the ones making profit off the backs of the crisis.”

With council funding seeing cuts of hundreds of millions of pounds over the past 12 years, many layers of local authority support previously available to struggling families have been cut away, leaving many to seek help from their children’s school.

Lucy added: "We do take on a lot more responsibility for children and families. I don’t mind so much because if we are making a difference, that’s what it’s all about.

"People should be able to afford to put their heating on, and clothe and feed their children.

"Some children are living in unintentional neglect.”