Children went hungry on their first day of secondary school after a nationwide outage hit a food payment system.

A number of Year 7 pupils at Leigh Academy Tonbridge couldn’t buy lunch or a break-time snack, with some going “hungry”.

The biometric system used by the school means youngsters use a screen to pay for food - using their thumbprint, which is usually scanned and registered at the start of term.

Parents then add funds to a linked online account.

However, a system issue on Tuesday meant the academy could not record fingerprints or send payment information out.

As a result, one parent said her child had gone without all day because his fingerprint had not been registered.

Meanwhile, another said her son “was not allowed food” because the school had not provided a way to top-up his online food account.

However, while acknowledging there were technical issues, the school says it only affected a small number of pupils and those who told staff were helped.

A Leigh Academy Tonbridge statement said: “While the vast majority of students were supported to access meals, we are aware via social media that some did not approach staff to make their needs known.

“Once senior leadership became aware of the issue, they ensured all students were assisted to obtain food.

“We are pleased to confirm the issue has now been resolved and we have reminded all staff that no student should be impacted by payment issues in accessing meals.”

The principal was aware of one incident where a child could not buy lunch and went with them personally to make sure they had food.

However, he was unaware other children had faced a similar issue until comments appeared on social media.

Other parents said on social media their children had been able to buy lunch despite not having a registered thumbprint account.

While one learner was unable to buy anything at break-time but was allowed to get lunch.

The school statement added: “The trust is proud of the quality of the food service provided across our academies and incidents like this are very rare.

“If any parents do have concerns, we would ask them to contact the academy directly.”