At Malone Integrated College about 55% of pupils have free school meal entitlement and there are also a lot of parents who are on lower incomes.
When the prices of school meals increased earlier this year, Leslie said she remembers “sitting with the head of the cafeteria and heartbreakingly decide how much to put up each item”.
“I think the cumulative effect of this will be immense, particularly families who have multiple children, both at a primary school and a post-primary school, and trying to make ends meet, it’s going to become incredibly difficult,” she said.
“I firmly believe families are going to struggle at Malone.
“I do believe that there will be some families and some young people who will be worried about the stigma attached to this, and won’t voice their concerns and won’t ask for help. And as an integrated school, that’s really sad for us.”
She added that she thought it would be “quite cutthroat for families”.
“Already, we have some of our children, particularly in junior school talking about Christmas and how they’ve had discussions with their families that things are going to be much more scaled down… just with the general cost of living crisis.
“This is only going to amplify the situation even more for young people.”
Leslie added that not having a healthy, balanced diet or going without food will be a “barrier to learning”.
Christos Gaitatzis is the principal of Omagh High and described the increase of 15% on a school meal as “excessive”.
“What is the price index at the moment – is it 3,4, 5%? I would imagine that would be the reasonable increase that you would put on anything, so they are going three times the value – to me it is unreasonable,” he told BBC News NI
Close to 30% of pupils at his school are on free school meals.
“You would expect that the cost for a child every week, when a price of a meal is close to £5, we are talking about £20 a week, £100 a month – that’s a significant cost for lunch,” Gaitatzis said.
“So other measures have to be taken by the families in order to make savings, for example pack lunches – then would that diet be balanced?
“We’re talking about a society where the importance of nutrition provided by schools has significant impact on your mental and physical health, so you effectively deter these families and children having these nutritious meals by putting the price up.
“Clearly this will have an overall future impact on the health of the kids.”
