Principals in even middle-income schools are reporting unprecedented levels of need as the cost of living crisis bears down on some of the youngest New Zealanders.

They are speaking out now, under the condition of anonymity to protect their students, as schools and early childcare charity KidsCan, which helps schools feed and clothe children, launches its winter appeal amid dropping donations as donors react to their own living cost crisis by cutting back on charity.

A principal in a North Island school, which was decile five before the system was ditched, has her school on the KidsCan waiting list.

Last week she found a young boy crying in the playground. When she asked him what was wrong, he said he was 'lonely, cold and hungry”.

She has another family sleeping in a tent in someone's backyard and regularly brings in her own children's clothes to keep her students warm.

'Why am I, as a principal who's here to lead education, having to pick up everything else before we can even teach the children?,” she says.

She earns a decent wage, as did her husband, but with three children the cost of living crisis is being felt at home.

They used to do the supermarket shopping and add what they wanted to the trolley but now have to be far more selective.

'We just can't afford it,” she says.

The latest Stats NZ data shows grocery prices rose 12.7 per cent in the year to May with the cost of fruit and vegetables – an 18.4 per cent increase – the fastest climber.

The food price index percentage change in 2023 reached levels not seen since the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Meanwhile, rental prices hit an all-time high in late 2022, while the Electricity Networks Association has predicted power bills will double within five years, while councils around New Zealand hike rates.

Data shows that in the year to December, 34 per cent of people had had no increase in their annual pay while Stats NZ data shows the 12 months to March saw inflation reach 6.7 per cent on the back of already historically high inflation.

At the school gates, the reality behind those numbers is playing out.

'Some of our children are just used to being cold,” says another North Island principal who just got off the KidsCan waiting list. The cost of living crisis is making getting by the hardest he has seen in 23 years of education.

'There are sections of our community where the kids come from homes with very little heating. We've got kids who turn up in bare feet with just a shirt and shorts and it's freezing. They've kind of been conditioned to accept that – that's their norm.”

KidsCan chief executive Julie Chapman says monthly donors are having to cancel donations as they deal with the cost of living crisis themselves.

It came as jackets had jumped in price by 20 per cent and some food items, such as baked beans, had gone up by 39 per cent.

-Tom Hunt/Stuff.