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I worked my socks off when my boys were little. It was just us in those early years & all I earnt as a young teacher went on childcare costs, mortgage, bills & transport. Food was bought with whatever I had left, with tea at the end of the month cheap white bread/toast & beans or
crisp sandwiches as a treat. I relied on my kids having a meal at nursery or school. In holiday time I relied on family. I dreamt of one day being able to buy them an ice cream. I was lucky I had wider support when I really needed it, but I was beyond skint. I wasn’t scrounging
or spending money on drink, drugs, TVs, cigarettes..... and even if I was, how is that the fault of the children? Yesterday staff across our schools dug deep at the end of the most exhausting half term ever to mobilise purchasing vouchers & getting envelopes ready to get them
posted out to our neediest families. From the reaction we had from these families during the initial lockdown, we know this will be spent on food. Because of that hard graft in the early years of my career, when my boys spent long hours in childcare so I could work, when I could
so easily have been a single parent on benefits, I am lucky to be in the position to make the call that these vouchers could be ordered & to allocate the budget for 100s of children. I’m so ashamed we live in a country that needs to do these things. Where’s our humanity?
