Cork teachers seeing homeless children coming to school hungry and without clean clothes

A Cork teacher has appealed for funding to help homeless children, saying teachers are seeing pupils coming to school without breakfast, clean clothes, or enough sleep.

Cork principal Siobhan Buckley told The Echo: “We witness the impact of homelessness every day in schools in Cork and across Ireland.

“Children aged four to 13 absolutely thrive on stability, continuity, and nurturing, and children who are living in temporary accommodation or homeless shelters — we can see it in their faces coming in the door.

“They are totally disorientated; they can be very withdrawn; their emotional wellbeing is on the floor; and their attendance could be very poor,” she said.

Reality

“Physically, they can come in without having had a breakfast, and we would try and give them breakfast or a lunch discreetly.

“They’re often lacking in sleep; you’d know they’ve been awake with a baby crying, people coming and going. It’s often a whole family in one room, that’s the reality.

“If they have shared cooking facilities, it can be quite fraught. People’s food can be taken, and play is so important for children but many have no space to play, nowhere to store toys — things we take as basic, they just don’t have.”

As homelessness continues to impact children across the country, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) has launched a digital resource, Homelessness in the Classroom: Guidance for Primary Teachers.

Record levels

The document offers practical advice for teachers ing pupils affected by homelessness and is a reminder of the critical role schools and teachers play every day in assisting children through adversity.

Homelessness in Ireland has soared to record levels, with 14,760 people in emergency accommodation, more than 4,500 children, a 17% rise in child homelessness in just one year.

Latest figures show that there were 92 families across Cork and Kerry in emergency accommodation, including 183 children.

Ms Buckley said that many of these families would have a single washing machine between them.

She said: “But there are lots of people drawing on that, and then where do you dry the clothes?

“What schools need to help these children is additional resources and funding so we can buy uniforms, wash clothes if necessary, provide food, therapists, as many are so dysregulated they need counselling.

“We use the word ‘home’ a lot in school, we say it’s home time when the bell goes, things like that, but it must really resonate with them because they aren’t keen to get back to where they’re living. School is a safe haven for them.

“When it comes to children like this, education becomes totally secondary to their emotional wellbeing — and we in the schools can see it all play out in front of us, and we’re in a position to help.”

Essentials

The INTO document advises teachers how to discretely make sure children are fed and have uniforms and hygiene essentials such as toothbrushes and hairbrushes, and underlines the importance of making sure they attend school and take part in trips and extracurriculars, even if it means covering the cost.

While the guide equips teachers with strategies to vulnerable pupils, the INTO is urging the Department of Education to step up its efforts to address the growing challenges faced by teachers and pupils.

Mary Magner, a recently retired teacher and former INTO president, told The Echo: “It’s a necessary guidance but such a sad state of affairs that INTO felt it needed to be done.”

Echoing the call for increased funding, INTO general secretary John Boyle said: “No one should have to create a publication like this, because no child should ever be homeless. While teachers do extraordinary work to these children, they cannot do it alone.

“Schools play a vital role in ing children who find themselves homeless and it underscores why education and investing in our primary and special education system should be a central issue in this general election,” he added.