The troubling stories have been highlighted by academics at the UCL Institute of Education who interviewed 45 low-income families in two areas of South East England.
Around a quarter of the children in the study said they sometimes went hungry, despite the sacrifices their parents made.
The research found that FSM are not accessible to many children from low-income families, such as those with no recourse to public funds (NRPF). While some schools fund lunches for these children (NRPF is usually due to unresolved immigration status), others do not, which means they go hungry.
“Sometimes you don’t have enough energy, you cannot cope in the classroom so you have to try and rest a bit,” one 14-year-old boy said. “You just put your head on the table and you end up falling asleep in the classroom and you get in trouble.”
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