Malnourished children are stuffing their pockets with food and turning up to school in dirty uniforms as the numbers living in poverty grows, headteachers have warned

Pupils are arriving to school on Monday wearing uniforms they have been in all weekend, while others do not turn up to school because they have no shoes, staff have said.

And schools are going out of their way to give parents debt advice – and one primary school headteacher recently opened his school during the severe snow to ensure his pupils got a hot meal that day.