School food programs are about more than just feeding kids. They are a form of community care and a policy tool for advancing education, health, justice, food sovereignty, and sustainability. "Transforming School Food Politics around the World" illustrates how everyday people from a diverse range of global contexts have successfully…

According to research, adequate nutrition is essential for a child's well-being and development. However, an estimated 1.54 million U.S. students cannot afford the meals offered at school. Studies show that students from low-income households who rely on free school meals for breakfast and lunch have a significantly healthier diet than those who…

Breaktimes are ubiquitous in English schools. Research suggests they have social value for children, but school staff often have a range of concerns about breaktimes and tend to undervalue them. However, there is little understanding about these times, not least because data are not collected about their organisation and characteristics. This…

Young people's wellbeing is often lowest where they assume a relatively low position within their school's socioeconomic hierarchy, for example, among poorer children attending more affluent schools. Transition to secondary school is a period during which young people typically enter an environment which is more socioeconomically diverse than…

This report outlines findings from National Literacy Trust's 2025 Annual Literacy Survey, exploring children and young people's writing enjoyment in their free time. This report is based on 114,970 responses to the Annual Literacy Survey from children and young people aged 5 to 18 in schools across the UK in early 2025. Findings show that writing…

Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of public primary school teachers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State regarding the prevalence and the effect of food insecurity on student learning. In this non-experimental, cross-sectional descriptive study, a survey was administered to 350…

Individuals have found their lives upended by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and are facing unprecedented challenges in all corners of life. In response, communities have banded together to meet the immediate health, economic, and basic day-to-day needs of families. Joining local efforts, afterschool programs continue to be a source of…

School meals play an important role in student well-being. However, studies have given evidence that school meals may not be satisfactory to students. Evidence suggests that taste plays an influential role in students' food decisions and eating experiences. This review of current research finds that studies around improving school meals mainly…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses the knowledge and skills in mathematics, reading and science of 15-year-old pupils in countries around the world. PISA is run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and assessment is typically undertaken every 3 years, allowing us to chart how…

This study investigated the impact of school closures for COVID-19 on the attainment of pupils in Key Stage 1 in reading and math, and on the gap between the attainment of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children. It explored pupils' attainment compared with pre-pandemic samples, as well as any changes in attainment over the course of the…

The purpose of this study was to discover if food insecurity worsened in North American children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study explored the prevalence of social food programs during remote learning periods when the pandemic halted in-person learning. Through progressive theoretical sampling, I investigated American and Canadian newspaper…

This report outlines findings from the National Literacy Trust's tenth Annual Literacy Survey relating to children and young people's reading in 2020, in addition to findings from the Trust's survey of children and young people's reading during the COVID-19 lockdown. 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 in the UK took part in the Annual…

This article examines interactions between school-level and pupil-level measures of socio-economic status for pupil reports of the school environment and a range of risk behaviours and health outcomes. The baseline survey for the INCLUSIVE trial provided data on pupil affluence and pupil reports of the school environment, smoking, drinking,…

In 2019, Child Trends partnered with the Institute for Health Research and Policy of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC-IHRP), EMT Associates, Inc., and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) to publish the first comprehensive policy analysis (see ED613844) to explore codified state statutes and regulations covering…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on Latino children's health and learning. This fact sheet examines the specific impact on Latino children's well-being and ability to learn and provides steps to keep children healthy and ready for school.