In un lungo articolo dietro soft paywall (qui il link alternativo) il Financial Times racconta le difficoltà della scuola pubblica inglese.

Mancanza cronica di fondi, ragazzini da contesti sociali disagiati, gli effetti molto concreti della pandemia sulla salute e sulla socialità nelle famiglie: l’articolo è raccontato dal punto di vista di Glyn Potts, preside del Newman Roman Catholic College a Oldham, poco distante da Manchester.

Every lunchtime, hundreds of schoolchildren materialised from all directions, jostling out of their classrooms and descending noisily down staircases to the benches below. Many rushed off to collect hot food or to the ever-popular panini counter.  But from his vantage point above, Potts could see that some of them were just waiting, hanging back until right before the bell rang to signal the end of the lunch break. More and more kids had begun sidling up to the dinner ladies at the end of lunch break, asking if any chips were going spare.

These were the “jam” kids, Pott’s term for children whose families were “just about managing” and so didn’t meet the British government’s threshold for free school meals. The jam kids were now routinely coming into school without the £2 they needed for a hot dish, a pudding and a drink. They were queueing for scraps.

Un tema piuttosto sentito sono anche le uniformi, che il preside vede come un modo per appianare le differenze sociali e di reddito già molto evidenti a scuola, e che tuttavia tanti studenti non si possono permettere.

I was struggling to imagine what the cold months ahead would bring, I told the headmaster. Potts had no such difficulty. He’d just left a school finance meeting and the numbers were fresh in his mind. Usually, he explained, Newman’s hardship fund provides about £3,500 a year for items — blazers, jumpers, purple-and-blue striped ties, school bags or stationery – for children who can’t afford them. But, with a week to go until the beginning of term, it had already shelled out twice the normal amount.

In primavera, il problema più urgente sembrava legato alla crisi economica ed abitativa che attanaglia il nord dell’Inghilterra, dove la chiusura dei principali impianti industriali, unita agli effetti della pandemia, ha incrementato drammaticamente il numero di famiglie senza fissa dimora.

The school was working with the Catholic charity Caritas in the hope of providing lamps or desks for those without. Having reported on Manchester and Oldham for more than a decade, I was surprised to hear about this sharp rise in homelessness numbers. I checked with Oldham College, a couple of miles away from Newman. It was seeing the same thing. The number of students flagged as homeless had risen 60 per cent year on year.