I don’t think deficit narratives about poverty are constructive and, moreover, they’re inconsistent with our core mission as educationalists. Our profession should certainly discuss poverty and education, but specifically in terms of understanding when and how poor children do well. Too often, when poverty is mentioned, this focus is lost.
I’m not in any way unsympathetic to the experience of poverty or the wider disruptions it can bring and, if it matters to some, I do have “lived experience” of it. I’m also not suggesting we should ignore the difficulties poor pupils or students have. FE colleges provide lots of welfare support from bursaries to food banks, help with meals, transport costs and even facilities to wash clothes. Many schools do the same.
However, I personally believe that support should be given discreetly and shouldn’t signal a drift from education towards a quasi-welfare service. When you are born or brought up poor, learning and developing your human talents is almost the only power you have to create a better future – and our job is to keep that hope alive.
Data shows there is a clear correlation between poverty and educational outcomes, but the evidence about causation is more complex. For much of the period from 2010 to Covid, educational outcomes improved. In 2012, for example, only 36 per cent of five-year-olds eligible for free school meals reached a good level of development. But 57 per cent did so by 2018-19. We don’t yet know whether this will continue through the system because this cohort won’t reach 16 until 2029-30. But we could see improvements at 11, 16, 19 in terms of chances of university progression before Covid (and other factors) interrupted progress.
It’s also important to note that underneath these averages there are huge variations between different poor children. In terms of ethnicity, the highest performing group on free school meals are Chinese children and the second highest are Indian. In terms of gender, girls do better than boys and, in geographical terms, free school meals recipients in London outperform their counterparts in post-industrial or coastal towns.
The general conclusions which can be drawn are that outcomes for poor children are not monolithic: they can improve and some already do very well.
So, we need a better understanding of when and how poverty matters in educational terms. There are clues to help us …
Relative poverty, a measure of inequality rather than poverty levels as such, may be less important than absolute poverty. The latter measures whether poor children are better off than in the past and gives a more optimistic picture. The number of children in absolute poverty (after housing costs) fell from 32 per cent in 2003 to 26 per cent in 2024.
In What Money Can’t Buy, economist Susan Mayer acknowledged that all children need a level of “basic necessities” to succeed – but after that point is reached, there’s no straightforward correlation between more money and better educational outcomes.
This is common sense. Some things, like luxury cars and five-star holidays, cost a lot, may result from privilege and give some children huge material benefits – but they have zero impact on their educational achievements. Being a Chelsea season ticket holder, for example, is probably a sign that a child is from an affluent family, but it won’t improve their cognitive skills. And this is good news because, if it wasn’t true, poor children would stand no chance at all.
Mayer argued that factors bigger than family income affect outcomes, with parental characteristics being the most significant. These are complex, she acknowledged, but she identified parental education, cognitive abilities, mental health, parenting practices and behaviours as being especially influential.
Again, there’s a common sense to this. Complementary findings arise from studies of educationally successful poor children, such as the Chinese and Indian high performers. These conclude that cultural values and parental expectations, work ethic and attitudes to learning, behaviour standards, plus community and peer norms, were factors that explained their success. Interestingly, belief in superior ability featured low in these characteristics. Effort and commitment were of much greater import.
Parents cannot do everything on their own, of course. Institutions are very important too and where they do produce exemplary results with a disproportionately disadvantaged intake, they tend to favour similar approaches. Whether that is Michaela school in Wembley, Tauheedul in Blackburn or Mercia in Sheffield, their approach tends to have similar characteristics focussed on strong behaviour, work ethic and high expectations – plus something that the average parent can’t ensure: excellent teaching, learning and assessment.
It follows then that poor children’s chances of achievement increase when their parents and educators share a set of characteristics. The problem we have is understanding why it seems so difficult to extend this across the country and there are two aspects to consider. First, there are those who don’t achieve because they’re excluded, opt out or otherwise don’t respond to a highly-disciplined environment in which their peers thrive. And then there’s geography.
The significant improvement in London’s educational outcomes in the last twenty years shows what can be achieved, but other areas remain consistently at or near the bottom in achievement terms despite numerous initiatives. Excellence in Cities, Education Action Zones, national strategies, pupil premium, opportunity areas, academies and free schools have all had some success. But none have brought consistent progress across all areas of the UK.
So, here is the dilemma to be resolved.
What is it about institutions, families, communities and neighbourhoods which make it so difficult to bring educational success to those who are ‘left behind’?
Poverty and money might be part of the answer – and cash transfers do have a role to play. But they won’t make a real difference unless we look beyond money and examine the wider aspects of disadvantage that really hold children back. And what we cannot and should not ever do is throw our arms up in the air and just blame “poverty”.
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