A NEW study has revealed 82 per cent of teachers in Britain see teens arriving for school hungry every day – in the South East alone teachers predicted an average of 46 minutes of learning a day was lost to hunger

Across the nation nearly four in 10 teachers, surveyed by Kellogg’s, believed one reason children in their class were hungry was due to their parents being unable to afford food for breakfast.

Throughout the South East 80 per cent of teachers had seen a teen come into school hungry – with 45 per cent seeing this happen frequently

Teachers among the region also claimed that 44 per cent of teens didn’t understand that breakfast was important, and 32 per cent said parents couldn’t afford it

Sixty-one per cent of teachers said due to hunger their secondary school pupils were unable to concentrate, 30 per cent were disruptive to the learning of other pupils, one in 10 teachers believed hunger would impact a child’s results such as GCSEs, with 15 per cent believing it would impact another child’s GCSE results.

Head of research at The Children’s Food Trust Jo Nicholas supports more healthy breakfast provision, said:

“Secondary education sees our young people maturing into adulthood, going through stressful exams and often choosing a life career path. All these things are hard to do when you are hungry and teens are often the forgotten age group when it comes to hunger.

“The survey results would indicate that a breakfast club for young people in secondary education, particularly those who need it most, would be a wise investment.

“Like all other school food provision, breakfasts need to be healthy as what children eat now determines their future health.”

Breakfast clubs have been shown to improve attendance, concentration and learning in children.

The research also revealed that around one in 10 children throughout the UK feel too ashamed to eat in front of their friends, potentially putting them off attending a breakfast club before school.

UK managing director for Kellogg’s Dave Lawlor concluded: “Kellogg’s has been supporting breakfast clubs in schools for 19 years providing funding, cereal donations and training to a network of 3,000 breakfast clubs across the UK.

“We would encourage our stakeholders to look at ways we can increase breakfast club support to help boost the provision from primary school to secondary school.”