Preston school a lesson to others for helping families during cost of living crisis

Ingol Community Primary has been featuring regularly on Radio 4's coverage of the way rocketing food and energy prices are having a devastating effect on students and their parents this winter.

The school has won praise for the way it has gone above and beyond to help minimise the damage the economic crash has had on family life.

But head teacher Naomi Parkinson modestly declares: "All we've been doing is what many other schools have also been doing - supporting the basic living needs of everyone in our community. No-one should be cold or hungry in this day and age."

The staff at Ingol have been providing family food hampers, cooking hot meals, washing and drying clothes and delivering Christmas presents for the large number of pupils' families who are finding life tougher than ever this year. Two thirds of the 200 students at Ingol qualify for free school meals, making its intake amongst the most deprived in the city.

One mum, who has four stepchildren at the school, described it as "more than a school - it's like a big family." Shannon Edwards went on: "It's such a special place. They don't have to do a lot of the extra things they do, yet they choose to do them because they really care.

"It is a massive part of the community and that's why I think the BBC decided to focus on the school. As a family we couldn't have managed without this school. They have done loads for us - in fact everything we have needed during these tough times.

"I can't thank them enough for all that they do for us and many more families in this community. The support they have offered us has been brilliant. All the kids at this school are made to feel so special. Our four wake up in a morning and can't wait to get into school. They love it that much."

The BBC's File On Four programme hit on Ingol after searching for a community to monitor during the cost of living crisis. Initially they focused on the whole of Whitby Avenue, with its two primary schools, a nursery, the Intact Community Centre and a church.

"It began in October," explained head Naomi. "They wanted to look at the cost of living crisis down one street in Britain and how the community were supporting each other. Before long they were just looking at us.

"We have a strong belief in our community which goes back to before Covid when we started to look at more ways we could help families. We were just noticing things that were affecting the children’s mood and mental health and causing them worries. We are quite proactive and we started up a foodbank, which carried on through the pandemic. Now the community is probably more in need than ever.

"We looked at Christmas and where, in previous years, families were in need of food to put on the table, the issue this year was 'how are we going to cook it?' People were asking were they going to have to stop heating the house for the day just to cook the Christmas dinner. So we cooked turkey and all the trimmings, plated it up and handed it out for families to re-heat by microwave."

Pointing to a pile of Christmas presents in the corner, Naomi explained: "We've already started our appeal to collect gifts for next Christmas. We want to make sure the children don’t go without. When I first arrived at the school we had 120 on the roll, now we have 200 and it is growing even still. We have 66 per cent who are on free school meals.

"It's quite a sad thing to say that here we are in 2023 and people are having to choose between putting the light on or washing their clothes. That's why we bought a washing machine and a tumble dryer so we could help in that way. All we want is for the children to feel safe, warm and happy so they are ready to learn."

Site supervisor Nigel Malyon is typical of the selfless individuals who are going way beyond their job descriptions to make the school a happier, more productive place for the children. The ex-serviceman, who spent 27 years in the RAF, has started up sports clubs, raised around £5,000 to help towards a school a minibus and provided playing kit for the youngsters to look the part. He has also improved the grounds of the school and even mows the pitches himself to save cash.

"It's all about making improvements for the kids and also to make the jobs of the staff better. When I came here we didn't even have anywhere to wash the cloths in the kitchen, so staff were taking them home to do. Now we have a washer and a dryer, so if a child gets wet or gets their clothes dirty during the day we can wash them and dry them."

The school admits its finances are getting more and more stretched during the cost of living crisis. The monthly gas and electricity bill has shot up by almost a half to £1,500. Head teacher Naomi admits: "It's going to get worse, not better. We are doing as much as we can to raise the aspirations of our children, telling them they can achieve whatever they want, but it isn't easy in the current financial climate.

"Our SATs maths results were fantastic, putting us amongst the top 10 per cent in the country. But we can't keep doing that and making these massive educational leaps if our budget doesn't allow us to continue doing what we are doing. The money has to come from somewhere."