When I think back to childhood, the strongest feelings are of hunger and of sadness. I witnessed a lot of drink and drug misuse, physical and domestic abuse, even death.

I’ve never been a drug addict, but I was in family rehab unit with my mum - who was addicted to heroin - twice before I was 12. We lived with my younger sister and twin brothers in Wester Hailes, a part of Edinburgh where many people live well beneath the poverty line. I spent three years in a care home. My siblings were fostered; they still are. At 16, I was moved into my own home in high-rise flats. I turned 21 last year.

This may sound like a horror story, but I’m not one of a kind. If you are a teacher, it’s very likely that you have pupils suffering like I did. They may not reveal their problems. They may try to be the centre of attention. And they may seem highly disruptive. But you must remember that sometimes the best place for them to hide is in plain sight.

I’ve been out in the big scary world for about seven years. I have a three-year-old boy with my partner and we live in a two-bedroom flat 50 steps from my childhood home. Although there are no drugs, alcohol or violence, my family still struggles. We are affected daily by the events of my childhood and education. Every week, I struggle to feed and protect them.

I’ve had a few jobs and always worked or done something since I was 16, but I’m by no means settled or secure. I didn’t get many qualifications as my last year at school was basically a non-starter. Like I say, there was a lot going on.

‘It wasn’t a place for children’

I have happy, carefree memories of primary school. I played football all the time, laughed with my mates in class and got a free dinner.

But life at home was pretty bad. I had no idea I was disadvantaged or living in poverty. I used to dread the holidays, however, as they often meant going hungry and having to be at home with my mum and the atmosphere of violence around people she was with - it wasn’t a place for children.

I remember being jealous at school seeing kids in sports teams, afterschool activities or even just having clean, new uniforms. These are all part of education, aren’t they? Not for me, I was told - because my family had no money.

By high school I had social work involvement at home and staff were at least partly aware of my circumstances. I was getting to school by taxi from a rehabilitation centre where my mum was detoxing from heroin.

I was starting to find school hard. Not academically - I was smart enough - but I had so many things disrupting my concentration. How would my mum be when I got home? Were my brothers okay in their foster placement? Who would be waiting for me at the school gates? I was struggling in classes and getting into trouble. Yet nobody asked if I was OK. To them, I was just a disruptive student.

After two stints in rehab and two relapses for my mum, we were back at square one. My work and behaviour got worse. I started to resent and blame school and the system for my situation.

Looking back, that was the wrong attitude to take, but I felt invisible, like nobody cared about me or where I ended up. I no longer had school to look forward to. I still envied people in my classes. They got to do things that, by now, I knew not to even ask for.

I remember distinctly the painful embarrassment of turning up to my hospitality class without the money for ingredients. I enjoyed that subject, but I didn’t take it in my third year as it wasn’t free.

The cost of ignorance

My worst day at school caused me two years of relentless bullying at three different schools and, along with everything else, eventually led me to drop out before my exams.

Whilst I was in the rehabilitation centre a film had been made for BBC’s Newsround about children in poverty, called The Wrong Trainers. Nobody from school realised that part of it was about me and my family.

About a year later, when I was aged 12 or 13, I went into a class to find - to my horror - the teacher holding the DVD. My story! I begged him not to show it, but he shrugged me off.

As a result, that was the worst 45-minute lesson of my life.

Soon, every young person in school had branded me a smelly junkie

Soon, every young person in school had branded me a smelly junkie. The school wasn’t aiming to hurt me and, ironically, was trying to educate pupils about poverty, but this is an important point: never did anyone think that one of the school’s own pupils could be living in such hardship.

The unfortunate truth is that we all think like this on some level. We hear about poverty and disadvantage and associate it with charities’ adverts on television or media reports of distant towns. But the very wealthy estate of Colinton lies just a quarter mile from the extreme poverty of Wester Hailes - and that contrast in fortunes is replicated all over the UK, not just in Edinburgh.

But there is hope. If you’re a teacher you can do something to help. One small act may trigger a young person to seek help or give them confidence to fight adversity and find a fairytale ending.

Ask yourself, are your school’s opportunities and education really free? If not, I implore you to act. Look, too, for signs of poverty; even if there are none, what harm would it do to ask a pupil once a day how they’re doing? And don’t let anyone fade away at the back of the class - no matter how much we hide, we all want to be seen.

Most of all, if a pupil is struggling or acting up, always remember this: they might be down but, with your help, they are never out.

Chris Kilkenny is a poverty and equality campaigner. He tweets @KilkennyChris