In a school with 109 pupils with various special needs 73% are on free school meals and milk (wlfare in the USA?) Of the other 23% most only skip above qualifying for free meals/food coupons etc.With one parent working above minimum wage. (We have about 3 children from affluent middle class families, 1 who has a nanny and working professional adults . Around 60% live in housing that could be called sub standard, on the poorest roughest council estates in the catchment area or the low class housing in poorer areas. (I do know that some parents/partners and children have helped these properties to become like that after investment and repair by the local council)

Some of our children go to bed hungry, that is to say regularly have no adequate meal at tea time,many come to school hungry, having had no breakfast-many without the opportunity to have it.(Quite a few turn up eating crisps and a fizzy drink to start the day).Very many of our children do not get new clothes even on special occasions, that includes many of our muslim children, who get second hand even at Eid.Some of course get regular new clothes.

An example, but reasonably typical; Gemma is 14 years old. She lives with her father who is on prescribed methodone and benefits.She has a bedroom she shares with her younger sister, but they share the bed. In the time I have known her, she has never had a new toy or clothing, even at Christmas or birthday. She did a work experiene at the local Oxfam and was presented with a set of clothing before she started so she could look smart. She never has breakfast, eats bread and jam for tea, the only hot cooked food she gets is school dinner and very occasionally a McDonalds when she goes to visit her mum.She has learning difficulties,being slow at learning-nothing else. She is hardly ever washed, comes to school with nits and dirty. She is one of the nicest,well behaved children in our school. I could bring her home!

When I got her a Christmas present the other year (A doll in a box) she told me it was the nicest thing she had ever had. She still talks to me about it, she says she dare not take it out of the box in case it gets spoiled.She is amongst the hardest working children in our school, tries and tries and is making only slow progress. She will leave school in 18 months time at the age of 16 with no support for the rest of her life.

Please do not underestimate the rate of child poverty in the UK, you need to look for it and you will find it, even close to the wealthy areas and leafy glades. I know of families like this up and down the country, many in the rural areas as well as inner cities.

Dave Bryant is quite wrong when he compares levels of poverty with higher expectations,the comparison is falsely based on the expectation that all (generalisation) people have the trappings of the social climate;washing machine, TV video, games station/computer, car, designer clothes and eat junk food. It just isn't so for many, and believe it or not, the poor have a right to expect these things as well, without it changing their status.It is an easy thing to say, that "they" and their children could live better if "they" didn't drink, smoke, go to the pub etc and that "we" (generalisation) would logically re-prioritise to increase our standard of living, but life doesn't work that way does it?

If so many are living on the bread line, then ther must be even more, lying pretty close to it, and not counted in official figures.