KIM McGUINNESS: Schools shouldn’t have to step in to help communities in crisis – but thank goodness they do

Schools in Sunderland are becoming community outreach points, filling the void left by the closure of Sure Start children’s centres during the austerity era. That’s the reality for teachers who are telling me they are doing all they can to help struggling families who have nowhere else to turn.
By Kim McGuiness
Published 28th Feb 2023, 10:00 GMT
Updated 6th Mar 2023, 20:06 GMT
Teachers are using pennies from their own hard-pressed pockets and food from their own cupboards. They’re bending over backwards for the kids in their care. As well as planning lessons and marking homework they are having to add food bank referrals and outreach work to their workload.Teachers are using pennies from their own hard-pressed pockets and food from their own cupboards. They’re bending over backwards for the kids in their care. As well as planning lessons and marking homework they are having to add food bank referrals and outreach work to their workload.
Teachers are using pennies from their own hard-pressed pockets and food from their own cupboards. They’re bending over backwards for the kids in their care. As well as planning lessons and marking homework they are having to add food bank referrals and outreach work to their workload.

Schools are there to provide kids with an education not their dinner or a jumper that fits – but this is exactly what they are telling me they are doing. One local teacher told me “we are happy to help, but we really shouldn’t have to”. And she is spot on; she shouldn’t. These teachers are using pennies from their own hard-pressed pockets and food from their own cupboards. They’re bending over backwards for the kids in their care. As well as planning lessons and marking homework they are having to add foodbank referrals and outreach work to their workload. The harm deprivation can cause to education, learning and development ever-present on their minds.

And it’s not just teachers, parents are getting in touch with me too, sharing their fears that the climbing cost of living will make it easier for vulnerable young kids to get entrapped into crime. This is a concern of mine too and stopping this is the underlying priority of all our prevention work – it has to be.

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I am the advocate for fighting poverty to fight crime and I have a lot of people who support me with this. Our region is experiencing the worst poverty in the country. A recent report by All-Party Parliamentary Group Child of the North warned that North East child poverty is now the highest it’s been since 2001. This has and will continue impacting our region’s children, families and communities - all who are crying out for more financial support from Government. Appropriate funding is needed across all our public services, from education right through to policing – that’s how our region will thrive, that’s how we improve lives up here.

Children who feel safe and secure, who have their needs met, they’ll do well – and this is what we want for them, and for the good of the region. Let’s face it, Sure Start Centres should never have been closed down – they brought the North East and its people huge benefits, yet since 2010 we’ve seen them ripped from the heart of some of our most deprived communities. And now, over a decade later, there’s no money directly available to fund ongoing interventions despite the benefits they bring elsewhere in the system. That leaves our schools to try and cover the cracks so kids don’t fall through them. They just want local kids to be OK and so do I.

Related topics:SchoolsNorth EastSure StartSunderlandNorth