The Cost of Learning in Lockdown (March 2021 update) is a report based on surveys carried out with parents, carers, children and young people asking them about their family's experience of learning during lockdown, with particular focus on families struggling with money.
We've produced a practical resource for educations staff to help tackle poverty and the cost of the school day, in collaboration with Children North East and the National Education Union.
Prior to COVID-19, there were more than four million children living in poverty in the UK – that’s nine children in a classroom of 30. In London, that number rises to 11. While the full economic impact of the pandemic is yet to be seen, we know that low-income households are bearing the brunt, and for families living in the capital things are likely to get worse before they get better. Even prior to COVID-19, the high cost of rent, childcare and travel made it very difficult for London families on low incomes to cover basic costs. In addition, families with children have been hit the hardest by cuts to the social security system, squeezing family budgets even further. In the face of this, our public services have a crucial role to play in tackling child poverty and ensuring children and families recover from the pandemic.
To understand how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted children’s experience of learning, we conducted some research through surveys and interviews. We gathered the experiences of 3,600 parents and carers, along with 1,300 children and young people, with an emphasis on the experiences of low-income households. We found that the cost burdens of school closures have fallen most heavily on families already living on a low income.
CPAG, alongside Diane Dixon Associates, have been working with schools in London to explore the role of primary schools in tackling child poverty. This report contains an outline of the main project activities, as well as a summary of the key learning to emerge from the project with a particular focus on how to scale up this type of work in schools.
This report has been developed by the A Different Take London panel. We are a group of children, young people and parents with experience of living on a low income, and people from Child Poverty Action Group and the University of Leeds. Between January–June 2019 we have been discussing our own experiences and priorities and talking to the people in our communities, to develop our own agenda around the most important issues affecting the lives of people in poverty and what we think should be done about them.
Living Hand to Mouth, by Rebecca O’Connell, Abigail Knight and Julia Brannen, brings the latest research on food poverty together with the voices of children and young people experiencing food poverty first hand.
This report presents the findings of a small-scale, local study of the costs of education in secondary schools in Oxford, from the viewpoint of parents. The research was conducted by the Oxford and District Action on Child Poverty group, whose goals were: to assess the costs of education for children in secondary schools in Oxford; to find out how families perceived these costs and their impact, and if and how they managed to cover them; and to learn what schools had done to respond to the impact of these costs on families and the outcomes of their responses. The focus was on pupils in year 7 in secondary school.
Today we publish our third annual report ‘The Cost of a Child in 2014’, written by Donald Hirsch from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University and funded by JRF. It draws on the Minimum Income Standard project (MIS) to establish how much families need to cover their basic needs like food, clothes and shelter, and to participate in society.