Much has been published recently on families living on or below the breadline. Many food banks can provide only three days’ worth of emergency food to families in need, and for approximately two children in every classroom the school meal is the only decent one they have each day.

I had never been truly hungry. I had felt peckish and declared myself to be starving but was never really hungry. But I have tried something this past month: for the first two weeks I ate only lunch, following chef Jamie Oliver’s recommended school menu, with nothing on the weekend. I then had a two-week “holiday” with no school meal but the equivalent of a food bank meal every third day. I now have a small idea of how constant, tormenting hunger feels. I became listless and irritable and could not concentrate. Does this sound like some of your students? Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to make hunger a priority during Britain’s G8 presidency in 2013. Can we hold him to that and demand that hunger in Britain is eliminated?

David Vorster, Teacher in FE, London.