New research has also found that nearly one in 10 teachers have brought in money so pupils who haven’t had anything to eat before lessons can buy food.
A poll of 765 teachers in England and Wales, conducted by YouGov for Kellogg’s, discovered that 78 per cent of teachers now see children coming into school hungry at least once a week, while 36 per cent said they see children going hungry every day.
According to a fifth of teachers, the numbers of children arriving at school hungry has increased compared to a year ago, while three per cent reported a decrease.
Almost three-quarters of those who thought the problem was getting worse blamed the fact that families are struggling financially.
Just under 40 per cent said parents were too busy to give their children breakfast before school.
There’s no doubt that feeling hungry has a marked effect on children’s performance at school – a third of the teachers said a child in their class had fallen asleep due to hunger or thirst, while 82 per cent said hungry children were unable to concentrate and 50 per cent said they were more disruptive.
More than half of teachers said hungry children took teaching time away from other children and almost a fifth said they interrupted other children’s learning.
Jill Rutter, head of policy and research at the Family and Childcare Trust, said: “Missing breakfast has a huge impact on children’s ability to concentrate, learn and behave, which affects their results and long-term outcomes.
“We are very glad that policy changes in England mean that parents will soon be able to ask schools to set up breakfast clubs. Governments in all parts of the UK now recognise that breakfast is essential to children’s learning.
“Despite these promising developments, there are too many children who still miss out. We are concerned that more than a third of teachers are seeing children come hungry to school every day.”
Over the past 18 years Kellogg’s has supported more than 2,500 school breakfast clubs in the UK, providing funding, training and donations.