Help teachers improve education attainment by ending child poverty

Today’s report from Ofsted, The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, 2006/07, highlights the links between low education attainment and economic disadvantage. It states: “The relationship between poverty and outcomes for young people is stark”.

Commenting on the report, Child Poverty Action Group’s Chief Executive, Kate Green, said:

“The Government must help teachers improve education attainment by keeping its promise to end child poverty.

“Children whose families cannot afford decent childcare, a quiet place to study at home with books and a computer, school outings and after school activities, and who may spend time caring for a disabled parent or younger siblings, will not have all their problems solved at school. Unless such inequalities are addressed too, the poorest pupils will continue to come through the school gates with barriers to learning.

“The evidence is clear that the attainment gap in education will exist as long as child poverty does. Addressing low incomes for the poorest families is therefore an essential part of any successful strategy to improve education outcomes.

“As a member of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, we are calling on the Government to provide the additional £4 billion investment needed to ensure the target of halving child poverty by 2010 is met and the commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 remains in reach.”

Notes for editors

1. In September, Child Poverty Action Group published the report Chicken and Egg: child poverty and educational inequality. The report found:

• By age three, being in poverty makes a difference equivalent to nine months’ development in school readiness.
• At each stage of compulsory schooling, the poverty gap grows. In particular, there is a big jump early in secondary school, with poor children nearly two years behind by the age of 14.
• Children who do badly at primary school are less likely to improve at secondary school if they are poor. Children who are only slightly below average at primary school are more likely to be among the worst performers at secondary school if they are poor.
• Young people with parents in manual occupations remain far less likely than others to go to university. Even though their prospects have improved, they have not been the main beneficiaries of university expansion. Children of non-manual workers are over two and a half times as likely to go to university as children of manual workers.
• Children from poor families are more likely to have poor qualifications. There are more teenagers outside education, employment and training in the UK than in most other countries, and the rate has been rising.
• The association between growing up in poverty and being poor in adulthood has become stronger since the 1970s. This effect is closely linked to education, but its growth is also associated with a strengthening impact of child poverty itself on future outcomes.

2. In 2007 and 2008 CPAG is undertaking policy and research work focussed on the relations between education, inequality and poverty. This will result in a major report publication and campaign on educational inequalities. It will present conclusions and recommendations addressing not only what schools can do to ensure better educational outcomes for poor children, but the action government must take to address social and economic inequalities that prevent children realising their potential in their passage through the education system.

3. See www.cpag.org.uk/campaigns/education for more information

For further information please contact:
Tim Nichols
CPAG Press Officer
Tel. 07816 909302
tnichols@cpag.org.uk