A big thank you for helping Mary's Meals to feed 2 million children every School day
Photo by Collette Rawlinson..

TODAY, more than 2 million children  will  eat  Mary's Meals  in  some  of the world's poorest countries  every School day.  Providing a daily meal in  a place of education  is helping  even the most vulnerable children to attend School and concentrate in lessons, giving them the freedom to learn and fulfil their potential.  Daniel Adams, Executive Director of the UK registered charity Mary's Meals, said:- "Mary's Meals began in 2002, by  feeding 200 children in  Malawi. Our  growth  since then  has been  driven  by  so many acts of kindness  from people from all walks of life, helping us reach  children in the greatest need.  We are deeply grateful to all our supporters and volunteers, including  in Liverpool, and  we simply could not have  reached  this  incredible  milestone  without you.  We  hope your readers will  join us in celebrating  this  amazing moment  for  Mary's Meals  and continue to support us in our quest to reach the next hungry child. "
 

Sefton Council Cabinet Member slammed free School meal news

SEFTON'S Council's Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Diane Roscoe, has slammed the news that School spending per pupil in England is lower than it was in 2010. And, she has criticised a change in the way the Government allocates Pupil Premium Funding, which is based on the number of children eligible for free School meals. Cllr Roscoe wrote to the Secretary of State for Education in May to highlight how Sefton's Schools would lose out on almost ₤800,000, but received no satisfactory response.

According to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in 2019/2020, School spending in England was just over ₤6,500 per pupil. In real terms, this is 9% lower than in 2009 to 2010. The Institute says that over the past 10 years Schools in disadvantaged areas, which include Sefton, have faced the largest levels of cuts.

The Government's decision to base how it calculates Pupil Premium Funding on the number of children entitled to free School meals, at each School, in October 2020, rather than January 2021, is likely to mean Schools in the most deprived 10% of areas in England will lose out on cash. This is because Schools in these areas are likely to enrol more than twice the number of pupils eligible for free School meals as those with the loWest levels of deprivation.

Cllr Roscoe said:- "It is widely acknowledged that many young people's education has been severely disrupted and particularly in areas such as Sefton where the effects of Covid19 have been most severe. This lack of overall funding and change to the allocation of Pupil Premium Funding means that pupils attending our Schools will have a much harder time catching up with lost learning. This is despite the Prime Minister's claim of a levelling up agenda for poorer parts of the country in the wake of the Pandemic."

The Government has allocated over ₤7 billion extra for Schools in 2022 to 2023 and has announced that Academic mentors are being placed in selected Schools across the country to work in small groups with over 250,000 students most in need of support this year. However, core, per pupil funding will still be between 1% and 2% lower than the 2010 highpoint.

Cllr Roscoe continued:- "In May, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Education pointing out that over 400 primary School pupils and 179 secondary pupils will not be allocated funding due to the Government changing the calculation date to October 2020. In the letter, I highlighted that this meant that Sefton Schools will lose out on almost ₤800,000 to help disadvantaged pupils improve their progress and reach their full potential. In his reply, Nick Gibb Minister of State for School Standards failed to satisfactorily address my question."

She added:- "Many households across Sefton have been hard hit by Covid19 and despite the valiant work of our Teachers and School staff to provide online learning as well as classroom learning for those who could not stay at home through the Pandemic, our young people have seen a significant interruption to their education. At a time when they need to be investing in young people's education and their futures and levelling up funding allocations between affluent and disadvantaged areas such as ours, the Prime Minister and his colleagues are completely failing to do so."

Luke Sibieta, Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the fact that Schools funding will not have recovered to 2009 levels by 2022 will make it that much harder for Schools to address the major challenge of helping pupils catch up on lost learning alongside everything else they are required to do. He said:- "Schools serving disadvantaged communities face the biggest challenges. They faced the biggest cuts up to 2019 and are now receiving the smallest rises."
 

Morrisons gives FREE gardening equipment to Schools to reconnect kids with nature

MORRISONS has launched:- 'It's Good To Grow,' a campaign in all of its stores that will donate gardening equipment to Schoolchildren across the UK in the hope of educating kids about where their food comes from. The scheme will see customers gain 1 'It's Good to Grow' token in their My Morrisons account via the app and website for every ₤10 that is spent in store or online, which can then be donated to any School to redeem equipment such as gardening tools, composting bins and seeds to get growing. The National Food Strategy, published earlier this year, outlined the need for the UK to improve dietary health whilst protecting the environment, warning that a failure to do so could lead to obesity costing the NHS ₤15 billion by 2035. Morrisons hopes the initiative will help build a connection between kids and healthy food by making School children more aware of the journey of food from field to fork. New research by YouGov on behalf of Morrisons has found that some children aged 6 to 15 do not have a good understanding of how fruits and vegetables are grown. For example, only 34% correctly identified how asparagus is grown, with 32 per cent stating that asparagus is grown underground and 21 per cent saying they don't know how it is grown. This highlights a need to show kids how food is grown to help them eat better now and in the future. Being Britain's biggest foodmaker, Morrisons is empowering children to connect with the natural world for them to better understand what they are putting into their bodies. Giving children the tools and knowledge needed can help develop better dietary habits; with research finding that out of 1,115 children surveyed aged:- 6 to 15, 70% are more likely to eat produce that they have grown and cared for themselves. 56% of the children aged 6 to 10, in the UK, are not currently eating their recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day. The Morrisons scheme aims to build a closer relationship between children and fruit and vegetables so they can see that it can be easy and inexpensive to grow their own produce once they have the necessary skills.

Rachel Eyre, Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Morrisons, comments:- "We're really proud of the work that we do for British food and with British farmers. It's great to be able to launch a campaign that will give our youngest customers the knowledge and equipment to gain a better understanding about where food comes from and how to grow it. We want children to engage with nature as it will help them to start eating more healthily now and in the future, because they are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables when they understand them or have grown them themselves."

'It's Good To Grow' aims to transform 14,000 Schools in Britain into Morrisons Growing Schools by giving children additional educational resources to demonstrate the importance of improving their health, whilst making use of their environment. This is the latest initiative introduced by Morrisons that aims to encourage a sustainable future and follows wider business commitments such as pledging to be completely supplied by net zero emission British farms by 2030 and committing to the Peas Please initiative, run by the Food Foundation, to encourage customers to eat more vegetables. Download the My Morrisons app via the App Store and Google Play to start earning:- 'It's Good to Grow' tokens that can be donated to Schools for them to redeem gardening equipment. For more information visit:- ItsGoodToGrow.Co.UK.