The fourth emergency service: How teachers became the last line of defence
Exclusive: Schools are increasingly compensating for rising levels of poverty experienced by children at home, according to stark new findings shared with The Lead.
Schools are becoming the UK’s “fourth emergency service” – providing food, warmth and crisis support to children as poverty deepens.
A study of more than 100 teachers across the UK – shared exclusively with The Lead – found educators are providing warm spaces, food, clothing, hygiene items, emotional support and crisis navigation, with limited resources and often using their own time and money.
The report authors warn that schools are increasingly absorbing responsibilities previously held by social care, local authorities, health services, and family support services. In interviews, staff repeatedly mention that this was not the role they were trained for, but that they feel “morally compelled” to fill the gaps.
The findings from National Energy Action [NEA] paint a consistently troubling picture of how fuel poverty manifests in UK schools, and reveal that the wider system families should be able to rely on is failing to reach those most in need.
According to the findings, 62 per cent of teachers have heard children talking about skipping meals, and almost 40 per cent have heard kids mention being cold at home. Clothing is a big issue, with 79 per cent saying pupils do not have weather-appropriate clothing, and 82 per cent noticing children repeatedly wearing unwashed clothes.
All educators interviewed described in some way how schools are now operating as an “emergency service”, with teachers providing everything from free breakfast clubs to snacks throughout the day, spare uniform banks, washing clothes for students, food parcels and blankets. And teachers overwhelmingly came to the same conclusion – that the situation is worsening and increasingly unsustainable.
“The findings were not surprising to me,” Michala Sullivan, NEA training programme delivery manager and former secondary school teacher, tells The Lead. “The statistics reflect what I witnessed daily as a teacher.
“This was not the role they were trained for, but staff feel ‘morally compelled’ to fill the gaps.”
“The fuel poverty crisis is affecting more aspects of people’s lives, and these impacts are not supporting our young people to achieve their potential. You can see that in this research. It used to be more of a hidden problem, whereas I think it is becoming much more visible.”
No breakfast, no coat
Latest estimates suggest there are 6 million children in the UK living in fuel poverty, many in the country’s least efficient homes. It translates to a terrible start in life. Missing school because of illness, doing homework in bed with numb fingers, too hungry to concentrate or learn. These realities are directly reflected in the report’s findings.
One school-based community liaison officer shared: “I’ve heard from young people who use wood stoves at home, just for mum to save money, they go into the woods and cut trees.”
Another teacher said: “Every day, basically, kids are walking into school and they haven’t had their breakfast and they’re freezing cold and they haven’t got the appropriate clothing on. They haven’t got a coat.”
Some explicitly mentioned children coming in with a noticeable damp smell, or wearing pyjamas under uniforms for warmth. They also raised visible poor hygiene, including lack of deodorant, unwashed hair or clothes, and dirty collars. They reported seeing students who had limited ability to shower or bathe due to a lack of hot water.
A ‘constellation’ of deepening need
The impact on educators is significant, with teachers describing guilt and burnout, alongside personal spending and expanded roles. Teachers are already struggling. Unions have warned that the Government’s latest proposals for pay awards amount to a “real terms pay cut”. Some teachers – themselves in financial difficulty – have sacrificed things for their own children to make sure their pupils have what they need.
For the children, the ramifications of living in financial hardship are countless and devastating. From low self-esteem and depression, to hypothermia and asthma, to an inability to concentrate and poor attendance – there is no area of their short lives untouched by fuel poverty.
“We simply can’t have a meandering approach that takes as long as it takes.”
“The findings bring a real, true understanding about how far away the promise of a warm, safe home is for those kids, and without that – just how detrimental it is to their life chances, their wellbeing, and any chance of success,” says Peter Smith, NEA director of policy and advocacy. “When you hear some of those stories, it really is harrowing.”
Study authors say fuel poverty is not a peripheral issue schools occasionally encounter, stating: “It is a structural condition shaping daily classroom reality.” They also describe a “constellation of need” that is “deepening and widening.”
They add: “In this landscape, schools are the most consistent and trusted touchpoint for families, and therefore the most effective launchpad for timely fuel poverty support.”
Read more: See all of our stories in our End Child Poverty campaign
“It should have happened yesterday”
The Warm Homes Plan published in January pledged an investment of £15 billion to upgrade five million homes by 2030. Under the ambitious and optimistic scheme, the Government is promising grants and zero and low-interest loans for clean energy upgrades in homes – for things like heat pumps, batteries and insulation upgrades – including low-interest loans for solar panels, which will be available to everyone regardless of income.
However, Smith says it is vital to target energy efficiency money directly at homes with children. So, the Warm Homes Plan and energy efficiency funding should be used to upgrade the coldest homes where children live first – Smith suggests instructing local authorities and delivery bodies to prioritise those properties.
“Without doing that, it’s very unlikely that, unless there’s some good luck involved, they’re going to be first beneficiaries of these schemes. And given the urgency of this crisis, we just can’t wait for outcomes to happen naturally.”
“This report highlights the tragic reality that many children face daily, and how schools are going above and beyond in supporting those most in need,” Catherine McKinnell MP tells The Lead, adding that she welcomes action already being taken, including scrapping the two-child benefit cap, free breakfast clubs and upgrading homes.
“But these findings are a stark reminder that more must urgently be done. Through our work on the APPG on Warm Homes, we will be working to ensure that every child, no matter their circumstances, has a warm home to return to at the end of the school day.”
Another key recommendation from the NEA report is that schools must be resourced as frontline referral points. This looks like providing schools with adequate resourcing for safeguarding, pastoral and community liaison provision, as well as implementing a national ‘warm home referral pathway’.
In terms of policy, there are immediate changes that would make a tangible difference to the lives of thousands of vulnerable children. “When you’re dealing with children, it should have happened yesterday. We simply can’t have a meandering approach that takes as long as it takes,” Smith tells us, stressing the need for urgency.
Smith advocates for a much larger, more effective energy debt write‑off scheme – expanding OFGEM’s current scheme could wipe out a meaningful share of the £4.5bn in energy debt. “If you remove that debt level from those households, it would be the equivalent of making energy more affordable,” says Smith.
Smith adds that devolved governments should fill gaps if Westminster doesn’t. He argues Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can’t wait for UK‑wide action – but should introduce their own extra protections and support for children in cold homes. And, crucially, he says “children’s impact” and a greater sense of compassion must be built into every decision.
“Any risk procedure undertaken at the moment is typically done through the lens of wider vulnerability, and that isn’t sufficient to offset the sorts of risks our research has unveiled,” says Smith. “A child‑specific impact assessment, a bit like the Equalities Act requires for elderly people, could be embedded across government, regulators and industry, to make sure they thought about all the implications their actions could have, and particularly alternatives, if those were possible.”
Schools are absorbing a crisis they did not create. Until vulnerable families are properly supported, classrooms will be forced to fill the gaps left by policy, and children’s futures will depend on how long teachers can keep holding the line.■
About the author: Natalie Morris is our National Editor here at The Lead. Elsewhere, she is a freelance writer, author, and host covering social justice, inequality, health and community.
👫Is this an issue you care about? Share this story with your friends, family and colleagues to help us reach more people with our independent journalism, always with a focus on people, policy and place.
Listen to our monthly podcast
An in-depth conversation with Michala Sullivan and Peter Smith, digging into more of the granular details of their groundbreaking findings, with recommendations for what the Government could (and should) do right now. Only for paid subscribers to The Lead.
No coats, no breakfast – the realities of child poverty in schools
“Hearing those stories, it’s really quite harrowing,” says Peter Smith, director of policy and advocacy at National Energy Action [NEA]. He’s referring to the findings of his charity’s latest study into child poverty.