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When free fruit is put out at Ferndale Community School staff have learned to turn a blind eye as some hungry children take extra. Some pupils arrive hungry each morning because their families cannot afford enough food and there is even a small group who don’t have beds to sleep on.

This is the reality in 21st-century Wales – not a glimpse of Victorian-era deprivation. Ferndale is a former mining village high up the Rhondda Fach Valley. It has the most deprived school community in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Some 37% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals and it serves an area listed as the fourth-most deprived in Wales.

Walking through the doors it doesn’t feel grim or hungry. Staff know their community well and are doing all they can to help. This now includes free fruit and vegetables in cooking classes, a free breakfast club ,and free fruit in bowls on tables at break and lunch.

“In this community there is need because of lack of food. There is hunger and lack of warm, safe spaces for some. The level of poverty in some of our families is quite scary,” says the school’s community manager Michelle Coburn-Hughes.

“There is a lack of carpets, lack of beds, siblings sharing beds. There is a correlation between poverty and mental health.” Stay informed on the latest health news by signing up to our newsletter here.

The data about deprivation and hunger is depressing and Michelle’s job is to tackle this, which she does with cheerful energy. She’s not going to gloss over facts but she is doing something real to address them.

Ferndale is one of around 400 schools across the UK to receive free fruit and vegetables through Tesco’s fruit and veg for schools programme. The programme is part of Tesco’s Stronger Starts, which provides more than £8m a year of financial support to community groups and schools.

Michelle, a mother of three herself, is well aware of the rising price of food even for families not in poverty. She applied for the school to be part of the Tesco fruit and veg scheme last term and since October it has had £500 a week loaded on a card to buy free fruit and veg from Tesco.

Michelle’s job is to know families and the community and she is also executive of the Fern Partnership – the school’s charity which raises £1.4m a year for the area. She knows that many children don’t get enough to eat, let alone fresh produce, and says the Tesco scheme has helped their learning and health as well as stopping some from being hungry at times.

It’s hard to do your best when you’re hungry and while the free school meal allocation may be enough in principle it does little to stop the hunger for children arriving on empty stomachs hours before lunch, she points out. The Tesco scheme goes some way to addressing this with its free fruit served alongside free bread from Greggs at the school’s free breakfast club which has been running for 18 months.

Around one in four of the school’s 660 pupils come to the free breakfast club each morning between 8am and 8.30am before lessons start. Michelle says it’s helped attention and attainment and concentration before exams.

“We do see some of our children hungry and even more so now with cost of living. There is an absolute correlation between being hungry and not being able to concentrate at school,” says Michelle.

It’s children like these that the Tesco scheme is targeted at. On average 18% of 11-to-18-year-olds have low intakes of vitamin A1 , which is important for the immune system, vision, and healthy skin, and just 4% of 11-to-18-year-olds meet recommended fibre intakes, according to the Nutrition Foundation.

Ferndale Community School staff collect their order from Aberdare Tesco each week with produce from it going to the food and nutrition department for cooking lessons as well as the free fruit bowls and breakfast club. The supermarket giant's fruit and veg for schools programme launched in September 2024. So far almost 2.5million portions of fruit and vegetables have been served through the scheme.

Michelle and other staff at Ferndale say the effect goes beyond addressing hunger and nutrition in the here and now. It also helps children do better at school and gives them knowledge and habits for healthy eating for life, which in turn they’ll pass on.

Being familiar with different foods and learning how to prepare nutritious, tasty meals is vital, says Ferndale food and nutrition teacher Hannah Darbyshire. She knows not all families have the money to buy fresh produce for each meal and says some children arrive in year seven with limited experience of tasting some foods or how to prepare them.

“Some have never tried strawberries or pineapple. Sometimes they haven’t tried certain fruit and vegetables so we do tastings. We have pupils who have never tried things and they have all gone away from tastings saying they want to eat something new now.

"Every pupil in our school is eating more fruit and vegetables since the Tesco scheme. You see them walking around eating fruit instead of a bag of crisps.”

So what do the pupils think about it? Is there any truth in the assumption that children and teenagers prefer sugar and junk?

That doesn’t seem to be the case with children in a year seven food and nutrition class on a rainy February morning. The group is making chicken and salad wraps and they are are busy chopping bright piles of peppers, avocado, tomatoes, spring onions, and other salad ingredients.

Ethan Evans admits he’s not keen on tomatoes or cauliflower and thinks he probably should eat more fresh ingredients. Folding his wrap like a pro the 12-year-old says he does cook at home sometimes.

"I cook with my grandparents and help with the Sunday roast but prefer eating to cooking it,” he jokes, adding: "I try to eat fruit and vegetables because it is very important and I like grapes best.”

Mason Anthony clearly loves cooking and is happy to explain how to make the best wrap. He doesn’t like sprouts and is “not the biggest fan of cauliflower” but he loves parsnips, carrots, and peas.

“I like making stir fries and I like bananas and oranges but I don’t eat fruit every day,” he admits. At school Mason, 12, tasted mango and peaches for the first time and now likes both.

Across the room 11-year-olds Darcie Wilkins and Grace Depace are slicing veg carefully. Darcie cooks at home “sometimes” and Grace’s favourite food is mac and cheese. Both girls are more keen on fruit than veg. They list blueberries and watermelon among their favourites.

On the opposite table two boys, heads together, are discussing the best way to slice a tomato and shave off carrot ribbons.
Everyone is getting stuck in and being creative with the bright vegetable colours and the careful piling and folding of the finished wrap.

Their teacher is pleased with the class progress as the year sevens leave the room with their wraps carefully boxed. Some open the boxes and take sneaky bites as they head for their next lesson of the day. For now no-one in this class is hungry.

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