The Education Policy Institute (EPI) is to publish the findings of its latest research shortly. It looks at the effectiveness, or otherwise, of educational policy and initiatives in recent years.
Among its findings is likely to be the fact that children who are “persistently poor” are among the lowest achieving group of pupils – and that the size of this group is increasing year on year.
Indeed, the only group that performs even less well are the persistently poor who also have SEN.
We already know thanks to EPI research earlier this year that the gap in GCSE grades between students in long-term poverty and their better off peers has failed to improve over the last 10 years and that more students have now fallen into longer-term poverty (Hunt et al, 2022).
As a child, I had some of the characteristics of a persistently poor pupil. I lived in a single parent home in a rented mobile caravan with an outside toilet. We didn’t have hot running water, a fridge or washing machine.
I was poor, persistently, until I started my first teaching job in 1980 at the age of 21. Yet, I went on to have a successful 35-year career in education, at the highest level.
I wonder what factors meant that I succeeded where many of my peers did not. What did my schools do that worked?
My father worked, but in a low-paid warehouse role. My mother suffered a debilitating stroke when I was eight. She never came out of hospital and died just before I took my O levels. However, she taught me to read, and I was ahead of my peers by the time I started primary school.
But perhaps the greatest gift she gave me was high self-esteem. She encouraged my curiosity and sense of adventure which indirectly improved my resilience.
Importantly, she ensured I began school life as a confident, adventurous, cheeky pupil who remained that way throughout her education (and beyond). I refused to be a victim and rarely felt sorry for myself.
Life, and school, was one big adventure and I vacuumed up knowledge and read avidly – getting through the entire works of Dennis Wheatly at Luton library during the summer holiday when I turned 10.
I can identify factors that didn’t seem to make a difference, for example free school meals. I don’t deny I was always hungry as a child. At home we had sandwiches with processed cheese for tea and the occasional Fray Bentos pie for Sunday lunch.
The free school meal probably helped to keep me healthy and ensured my good attendance, but then missing school wasn’t an option with my father, who sent me in with measles on one occasion.
Booster classes or extra revision sessions were also wasted on me as I had chores to do at home every evening which meant staying after school was impossible.
I don’t think the key to improving the educational outcomes for persistently poor children is solely about tackling poverty, although that of course is a worthy and important goal.
I think the key is to empower the pupil from the very start of their education to be resilient in their environment. For example, I wasn’t really aware that I was poor – at least not until I went to university. There were lots of things I didn’t have as a child such as new or clean clothes, holidays, books, a car etc – but we compensated for these things with trips to the launderette, my friends would lend me clothes to wear to the local youth club and disco. I occasionally stayed with relatives in different parts of the UK during school holidays. I borrowed books from the library and travelled by bike or public transport. In my opinion, the lack of material things could be overcome and did not severely impact my learning.
I attended a “bog standard” comprehensive school and ordinary university, but at both I received good teaching and encouragement. I was the first in the family to attend university and, despite the pressure to contribute financially to a single parent household, my father was sufficiently ambitious on my behalf that he suffered the hardship of keeping me at school so I could take my A levels. I then qualified for a full grant to go to university.
I have been described as “relentlessly determined” and applied this approach in all the schools where I was headteacher. I was fortunate to be part of the early academy movement and saw first-hand how it was possible to transform the life chances of many individuals from poor backgrounds by having high expectations, refusing to compromise on the quality of teaching, and providing pupils with enriching experiences such as theatre trips, residential visits, the opportunity to take part in debates, to hear motivational speakers, to be rewarded for their achievements and effort, and so on.
The early academy movement has been criticised for “throwing money at the problem” but, in my view, it worked.
As is often the case, the factors that will make a difference to the educational outcomes of persistently poor pupils are not rocket science and I am certain many schools are succeeding.
In my view, if I had to identify just one thing that had the biggest effect on my educational outcomes, it would be learning to read before I started school. The ability to read gave me access to knowledge about my world, it stimulated my imagination, and provided a means of escape from the realities of everyday life.
- Jane Ireland is a pseudonym. The author of this article is a school leader in England. This article was inspired by a talk given by David Laws, executive chairman of the EPI, to a group of governors at a recent conference organised by The Kemnal Academies Trust.
Further information & resources
- Hunt et al: Covid-19 and disadvantage gaps in England 2020, EPI, February 2022: https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/disadvantage-gaps-in-england/