I set up Learning with Parents to challenge inequality in educational outcomes and to try to ensure that all children, including those from disadvantaged communities, are able to fulfil their potential. I am therefore incredibly alarmed and saddened by the cost of living crisis which looks set to push up to 500,000 more children into absolute poverty.
The team at Learning with Parents are working to play our part in responding to this evolving crisis. We know this is a huge problem, which no one charity can address, but here are some of the things we are doing to try to help:
- We are supporting calls for every primary school child in England to receive a free school meal. Together with the National Education Union (NEU) we have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister demanding this. With levels of poverty rapidly rising, traditional Free School Meals (FSM) metrics are too cumbersome and the lag too great to ensure that children are never too hungry to learn at school.
- We are calling for additional support for parents currently struggling to cover the additional costs linked with the start of the new term, such as buying new school uniforms.
- We are working with the IG Group to start developing materials to help all parents to play fun and accessible games with their children around numeracy and managing money, which allow them to develop vital financial literacy skills.
- We are continuing to ensure that all our activities are fun and accessible, as well as promoting learning, to support parents who are under even more financial and time pressure to continue to engage in their children’s learning.
- We are looking after our own team and increasing salaries by an average of 5%, weighted so that those on lower salaries will receive a greater percentage increase than those on higher salaries.
We welcome any feedback and ideas for further collaborations at this difficult time, so please do get in touch on hello@learningwithparents.com.
