Cost-of-living: 800,000 children from poor families are being denied free ... trends now

The school bell won't ring for at least an hour on this dark, bitterly cold morning in North West London.

But in the darkened rooms of Newman Catholic College, an all-boys' secondary school in Brent, a chink of light shows the way to the bustling canteen.

It's 7.40am and already a group of boys — bleary-eyed and sporting identical Nike rucksacks — are crowding around the hatch where cereals and hot bagels have been laid out.

I watch as they help themselves and sit down — some of them ravenous — with their friends to eat.

Up to 35 Newman pupils visit this 'Breakfast Club' every morning.

For many of them, it is their only meal of the day — they would have otherwise spent their time here with rumbling stomachs and declining concentration.

Like other primary and secondary school students in England, the poorest pupils at Newman Catholic College are entitled to Free School Meals (FSM), supplied by the school and subsidised by the Government.

It means that, at lunchtime, they queue with the rest of the children who can afford the £2.30 meal and tuck into shepherd's pie, vegetable hot-pot or chicken lasagne.

For a child to receive FSM in England, they must be part of a household with net earnings of less than £7,400 a year (not counting benefits).

In June this year, 1.9 million pupils — just over a fifth of the total — were on FSM.

But there are 800,000 children living in poverty who have missed that threshold — some by just pennies.

This cliff edge of eligibility has created a band of 'hidden hungry' children — a subsection of pupils deemed too rich to be provided with a meal in school, but too poor to afford one.

Their families are living on the breadline, struggling to make ends meet as the cost-of-living crisis bites and their numbers are increasing.

Anne Longfield, the former Children's Commissioner for England, has urged the Government to increase eligibility and 'recognise how important Free School Meals are for struggling families'.

And a slew of celebrities has also called on the Government to act, including Jamie Oliver, the footballer Marcus Rashford and former government 'food tsar' Henry Dimbleby.

Famously, Rashford has fought a determined campaign on behalf of poorer children, successfully ensuring that the 1.3 million youngsters who received free school meals during term-time were also given vouchers for food in the summer holidays.

Last month, the Manchester United star — whose mother raised five children while working full-time on minimum wage — saw his Free School Meals campaign voted the best of the past ten years in a major poll.

At Newman Catholic College, where it's exam week, headmaster Andrew Dunne says that of his 710 pupils, about 250 qualify for FSM, while another 250 should qualify but don't. 'Some students come in and their lunchboxes are filled with nothing but a packet of biscuits,' he says.

'We track those who aren't eating and discreetly take them aside and help them.'

Jo Englishby, the school's designated teacher for pupils in care, says: 'Lunchtimes are a giveaway because you see them sitting with other students but not eating. Some of their friends share food with them.

'Families are really struggling. Kids who weren't on the poverty line are now below it. They are invisible children.'

Newman is a voluntarily-aided Catholic school and uses a discretionary 'hardship fund' to help pupils.

'We've bought four pairs of shoes for students alone this week and that is a clear indicator of where we are as a country, let alone a school,' says Mr Dunne.

But not all schools have private funds.

'I know of some cases where staff at other schools have put their hands in their pockets and invested their own money to make sure children are fed,' he adds.

'It's got worse since the cost of living crisis, around three months ago. Some staff have been here for decades and they say that the start of this term is the toughest we've had.'

Across the country, there are tales of child hunger that would be shocking by the standards of Victorian Britain, let alone the world's sixth- largest economy.

'I found that children were either stealing food from others or eating things such as rubbers to have something in their tummies,' a state-school primary teacher told the charity Chefs in Schools.

In a recent poll of primary school teachers in England by the charity, a quarter said children were skipping lunch owing to poverty.

Many teachers reported that children's lunchboxes might contain just a single chocolate bar or a Tupperware container of dry breakfast cereal.

'[In] our school dinner halls we have had instances of children coming in with just a small yoghurt or two solitary rashers of bacon in their lunchboxes,' Nick Capstick, CEO of the White Horse Federation, a group of schools in the West Country, said recently.

'It is hard to forget the sight of a child pretending to eat from an empty lunchbox.'

Towards the end of the month, as funds from the parents' last payday dwindle, teachers report lunchboxes becoming ever more scarce, with some children eating just one slice of bread or even mouldy bread.

So who are these 'Hidden Hungry'? The charity Feeding Britain describes several cases.

There's the care home worker in Barnsley: a single parent who works 40 hours a week on minimum wage and cannot claim free dinners because she is 'pennies over the threshold'.

Then there's a postwoman in

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